The Empire of Time

92

Hecht is waiting for me at the platform. I make to step down, but he jumps up and takes my arm.

‘No time, Otto. Something’s happening.’

And we jump. Back to the clearing in the forest. And there – the merest suggestion in the air; the palest, most spectral of presences in that moonlit space between the trees – is Ernst, suspended like a chrysalis.

I stare, horrified, for the look of pain on his face is almost beyond imagining. It’s as if he’s been buried alive. Or crucified. Those eyes…

‘How long has he been like this?’

My voice, in that strange, twilit place, is a whisper. We are alone there, except for the silver-grey boles of the trees and the stars and the full moon hanging over us like a watchful eye in that sable, cloudless sky.

‘A week or so. But it’s growing stronger by the day. I brought a team in…’

‘And?’

‘They’re not sure, but they think it’s because there’s not enough energy to sustain a genuine no-space.’

‘There’s a power source, then?’

‘Yes, but it’s anchored somewhere else.’

‘Have we any idea where?’

‘No, but Zarah’s doing the calculations. She thinks it’s up the line somewhere, possibly in the mid-twenty-eighth.’

I look back at Ernst and shudder.

So that’s it, is it? A man-trap, laid in Time. And every bit as savage as its ancient iron counterpart.

‘Why isn’t he dead?’

Hecht’s voice registers his disgust. ‘They’re feeding him air – just enough to fill his lungs.’

‘Then he can move?’

‘No. They’ve paralysed his motor cortex. But his lungs and his heart are still functioning. They clearly want to keep him alive.’

And in torment. I groan. Poor Ernst. Poor bloody Ernst.

‘So what are you going to do?’

Hecht smiles. ‘I’m sending you in, Otto. Just as soon as we know where the power source is.’

‘The anchor?’

‘Yes…’

‘But what of Kravchuk? I thought…’

But I leave it there. This is more important, I realise. Because if the Russians have found a way of trapping us – of doing this to our agents – then we may have lost anyway, whatever happens to Kravchuk and the Horde. Looking at Ernst, at his haunted, pain-filled, unblinking eyes, I know that he wants to be put out of his misery, that anything, even death, would be preferable.

‘You’ll say nothing, Otto, to the other agents.’

‘No,’ I say distractedly. ‘No, of course…’

It’ll be our secret.

93

‘Are you ready, Otto?’

I’m not, but I nod anyway. I’ve got everything I need in a small leather bag on my back.

‘Good luck,’ Zarah says, looking at me fondly. Behind her Urte and Marie are smiling, but their smiles are strained. They know what’s going on.

So much for secrets.

‘Burckel knows you’re coming,’ Zarah says, handing me a small package. ‘These are his instructions. He’s to read them, then destroy them.’

For once I’m surprised. Hecht said nothing. Nor do I know what’s in the package. But I take it and pocket it without a word.

‘Okay,’ I say, stepping up on to the platform. ‘Let’s get going…’ And in my head, I add: for the sooner Ernst is out of there, the better…

I’m hoping Zarah’s right – that she’s pinpointed the precise location of the power-anchor. If so, and I can switch it off, then Ernst is free. And maybe, if the timing’s right, I can undo all of his suffering. Nullify it.

Only there’s a paradox here. If Ernst has been trapped that long, then maybe I’ve already failed, because if I’d succeeded…

I try not to think of that. Try to concentrate on my actions having some significance. On the urgency of my task.

Zarah brings her hand down on the pad. There’s a moment’s bright intensity. My whole being seems to implode upon itself, every cell, every living atom of me falling inward.

And I jump.

Into a darkened room. Into silence and the smell of sweat and oil. I step across and, draw back one of the thick, heavy shutters.

And stare out across the immense sprawl of Neu Berlin. It is the fourth day of June, 2747 ad. Night has fallen and the massive buildings of this energy-rich city sparkle like solid slabs of jewels against the dark, filling the skyline horizon to horizon.

I turn, looking back into the shadowed room. To my left is a low pallet bed. Beyond it, in the corner, is a small writing table. Shelves fill the whole of the wall facing me, floor to ceiling, while to my right…

‘Light,’ I say, and at once a flattened globe lights and lifts from among the clutter on the floor, its growing illumination throwing my shadow across the room. I stare about me, astonished. The place is a mess. A real pigsty. The bed’s unmade, the shelves filled to overflowing. On the bare floor in front of them are piles of unwashed clothes and books and papers, while in a large crate in the right-hand corner are a jumble of assorted machines – broken, it seems – and a whole miscellany of objects. I walk across, then crouch, sorting through the mess, not sure what I’m looking for, or what instinct guides me.

My eyes look along the shelves. It’s a curious mixture of ancient and modern, fact and fiction, but again I don’t really know what I’m looking for, so I straighten up and, stepping carefully over a precariously balanced stack of books, I go to Burckel’s desk.

Burckel is a ‘sitter’. He’s been here in Neu Berlin these past eight years, never once jumping back. None of the locals would ever suspect he was a time agent. Burckel is just… Burckel. A scholar. Something of an eccentric.

There’s an ancient ink pot here, made of carved crystal, and various papers, political pamphlets mostly, many of them in ge’not, the revolutionary language of this Age. The possession of a single one of them could lead Burckel to be put away for a long time, and there are dozens here. I push them aside, then reach to the back of the desk where, beneath several slender volumes, my fingers discover a big, leather-bound book.

It’s a diary – Burckel’s journal by the look of it – but I can’t read a word, and not only because it too is written in ge’not. The handwriting is tiny, minuscule, so small, in fact, that my unaided eyes can make out only the vague shape of the tiny, carefully crafted symbols. It makes me feel uneasy.

Closing the book, I push it back beneath the clutter, then return to the window, looking out across the levels.

We’re two miles up here, in one of the central stacks, facing south towards the Tempelhof.

Low down there’s a steady stream of SWs – Schweben-wagen – the long black shapes of the flyers flitting along the air-paths, but the traffic’s relatively light this time of night. I’m about to turn away when there’s an explosion, loud yet distant. In its glare I glimpse figures on the rooftops of one of the massive apartment blocks across the way, maybe a mile distant.

‘Otto? Is that you?’

I turn, facing the figure in the doorway.

‘Albrecht?’

Burckel lowers his gun, then steps across and embraces me. It’s some while since I last saw him, but he greets me like an old friend.

‘How have you been?’ I ask, noting how much older he seems than when last I saw him. He’s my age, yet he looks a good ten years older.

‘I’m fine, Otto.’ And as he says it I notice the excited gleam in his eyes. And little wonder. He has been waiting for this since he first arrived. These next few days are crucial to our history, for these few small days form a historical cusp, and both we and the Russians know it.

‘How are things back at Four-Oh?’

‘Nothing changes,’ I say, and we both laugh, knowing how untrue that is.

‘Oh,’ I say, remembering suddenly. ‘This is for you. From Hecht.’ And I hand him the packet, then watch as he sits on the edge of his unmade pallet bed and picks open the seal.

I watch his eyes. See the surprise that comes into them. He glances up at me, as if he’s about to speak, then decides against it. He slips something beneath the mattress, then carefully folds the single sheet of paper and, taking a light-stick from his pocket, holds the flame beneath it. Then, when it catches, he lets the burning paper fall on to a patch of bare floor, stamping out the embers with his boot.

Albrecht Burckel is a small man. He has a neat, rounded head, shaven and polished, so that it gleams in the soft light from the lamp. He is compact, muscular yet wiry, like a certain kind of dog, bred for its tenacity. That same smell that permeates this room, permeates him. He is wearing a black one-piece of rough cloth, and on his bare right arm there is a number: 145-G-774-ACGT 1133.

He sees me staring at it, and gives a grin. ‘We’ll have to get you one of these, Otto. That is, if you want to get inside the fortress.’

I roll back my sleeve, and show him. Hecht thinks of everything.

‘Are you hungry?’ he asks, and when I nod, he grins again, a boyish, almost innocent grin. Looking at him, you’d never think him capable of killing, yet he has, more than a dozen men in all. Russians.

‘Leave your pack here,’ he says. ‘It’ll be safe enough.’

We leave the room, turning right towards the lifts. At once the Mechanist world assails me. Both sides of that long corridor flicker and buzz with bright-lit images, images that, in their depth and clarity, seem as real as Burckel and I. Each panel seems a room, as if only the thinnest sheet of glass separates us from another, busier world. Yet that other world has no more reality, no more depth, than a picture drawn on the finest of silken screens. Creatures a pixel thick walk from panel to panel, keeping pace with us, like figures from an ancient bazaar, anxious to make a sale. Their clamour is muted this time of night – how else would people sleep? – yet my eyes, bombarded from all sides, seek refuge in the untenanted stairs beyond.

We reach the lifts. There are fast-tracks for the execs, but we take the cage, rattling up the levels in a packed, malodorous box of steel and wire, glimpsing the miles beneath our feet through the mesh of the floor, two hundred or more of our fellows crammed in there with us, slowly ascending to the bright lights of the uppers.

I’m conscious at once of how different Albrecht and I are; natural men, Naturlich, among the genetically sculpted people of this age. I try not to stare, to keep my eyes from meeting others’, but it’s hard. These people have been changed, adapted for their tasks. Such body shapes offend an eye accustomed to the normal human form. Yet it is we who are the odd men out. It’s their world now.

As the lift halts at the topmost level and the crowd spills out, Albrecht takes my arm, holding me back until they’re gone. They turn right, heading towards the great bridge that spans the stacks, but Albrecht takes me left, through the flicker and buzz of another, shorter corridor, and up a winding set of steps.

Neu Berlin is a city of two hundred and fifty million people, and nowhere is that more apparent than here, in the sprawl of the southern city. Yet it is not until we climb one final flight of steps, until, coming out on to a broad verandah, we turn and see the enclaves, directly north, there where the land has been raised and terraformed, that the real majesty of the place is revealed.

I walk to the edge, a vertiginous drop beneath me, and stare.

The city is a high-rise sprawl, stretching away for miles on every side, a densely packed mass of gargantuan, slab-like buildings, contrasted here and there by a slender spike or two, thrusting up like the spears of giants. To the north the spaceport glows orange, like a furnace, while to the left – north-west of where I stand – is the dark, distinctive form of the Gefängnis, the Guild’s prison, its windowless outer walls the very symbol of abandoned hope. Just left of that, a half mile distant, are the ministries with their distinctive pyramidal shapes, and beyond them, in a belt that follows the river west, lies the industrial district, housing the unsleeping furnaces of Greater Germany.

It’s an astonishing vista, and yet the eye only dwells on such details for an instant before being drawn to the fortress itself, to its mile-high adamantine walls, its massive central gate, its battlements and, soaring above it all, the nine great towers, the Konigsturm at the centre, dominating all.

Nothing surrounds that massive edifice for a space of half a mile. Nothing, that is, except a huge moat, a hundred metres across and fifty deep. And into that moat, its motion never ceasing day or night, falls a great curtain of water, such that the fortress seems to rise from a pure white bed of mist, above which stretches a massive bridge, its single span arching a mile towards a second, equally massive gate that rises from a great dark mound, there at what used to be the Brandenburger Tor. Across that bridge, at every hour of every day, a mass of humanity flows, the servants of the King, uniformly dressed in black.

Asgard. I stare at it and catch my breath, for there, beneath the waning moon, lies the dark fortress itself, the Dream made real, its massive heap of night-dark stone more like a mountain than a castle, thrusting up from the heart of the ancient city, tier after tier of its massive central tower climbing the star-studded blackness.

I have been here once before, long ago, back in my youth, back when this massive edifice of sculpted basalt was brand new, the terror and envy of the world, yet seeing it now I am astonished once more by its size, by the physical reality of it.

Like all else here it is made of Kunstlichestahl – ‘false steel’ – more plastic than metal, though equally tough. Yet fake or not, its solidity is undeniable. It is German in a way that few buildings in our history have been. A castle. A fortress. An embodiment.

‘There it is,’ Burckel says, coming alongside me. ‘Das Hornisse-nest.’

A hornets’ nest, indeed. I laugh, then turn my eyes from those soaring battlements. Burckel is watching me, his eyes weighing and measuring me in a way that I might find offensive in another. But I am conscious of what Burckel has gone through here. The state’s spies are everywhere.

I follow, keeping close as we cross the bridge and descend into the Tempelhof. The steps and narrow alleyways are crowded now, the press of humanity increasing steadily as we near the Vergnüngungspark – the ‘pleasure-ground’.

And suddenly, as we turn a corner, there, ahead of us, at the foot of a broad flight of steps, lies Von Richthofen Strasse, its broad avenue packed with pleasure seekers, throbbingly alive with music and the glare of lights from endless bars and cafes, their balconies cascading with flowers and greenery, like this is Babylon.

The evening’s warm. Pushing through that densely packed crowd, my senses are once again assailed, this time by a hundred different smells, some sweet, some foul. There’s an air of intoxication, of dangerous excitement, but so it is in these places, whatever the century. My eyes, however, note the differences. These are, after all, a ‘sculpted’ people, hand-crafted, one might say, by the great geneticists of the King’s dark fortress. Some have longer arms, some heads that seem too thin or too broad. Some are tiny, like arrested children, while others have great muscular backs and chests. And though there is great variety, one notices immediately that such differences are differences of type, not of individuals. These people have been bred for specific tasks. Among them, Burckel and I are the exceptions. Not that we are alone, but Naturlich like us are in a distinct minority here. I see only three, maybe four others as we make our slow way through the press.

We’re halfway along when I stop, my eyes caught by something. Burckel comes back and, taking my arm, speaks to my ear.

‘What is it, Otto?’

I gesture towards a row of men and women dressed uniformly in black leather, their heads shaved, chained to the wall nearby – or not chained, I realise, but plugged-in, lengths of flex looping from sockets between their shoulders to a panel on the wall behind. It’s all very high-tech, yet they have the look of slaves.

‘Ah…’ Burckel says. ‘The Stopsel…’

Plug-ins. Of course. And he quickly explains that these are for hire, for any purpose. You have only to pay the requisite fee.

I turn, looking about me, and see another row of Stopsel further down, and, just across from us, another. As I watch, someone slips five credits into the slot of one of the panels and, as the flex falls free, catches it, then leads his purchase away.

It’s brutal, yet no more ugly than things I’ve seen elsewhere, in other times. People have always sold themselves. If anything, it is its honesty that shocks.

Burckel walks on, past endless noisy bars and seething clubs, then ducks inside, into the Schwartze Adler –the Black Eagle. I follow him in, looking about me. It’s done up like an ancient bier-keller, with great wooden trestle tables and crudely carved benches. There are slatted wooden partitions and iron cressets on the walls. Large-breasted, blonde-haired Frau, in tight, dark pleated skirts and frilly white blouses move between the tables, carrying large trays of foaming steiners. But I alone seem to notice the anachronistic strangeness of it all, for there, at the centre of that great barn of a room, two men – great shaven-headed brutes in combat gear – fight hand-to-hand in a jungle glade while a throng of eager-eyed customers look on from every side.

We stand there, watching.

There’s the whack and thud of blows given and received. The two combatants grunt and sigh and groan as the death struggle nears its climax. It seems an equal match, and then one of them – the Russian – slips in his blood and falls and suddenly the bout is over in a blur of quick and vicious blows. Blood spurts, a fountain gush of blood, and a great cheer goes up – yet even as it does, the figures vanish, leaving the stage empty, a single spotlight picking out the bare wooden planks.

‘Upstairs!’ Burckel yells into my ear, his voice rising over the mob’s excitement, and up we go, even as another figure – a tall, broad-shouldered man in a white senatorial toga trimmed with mauve – appears from out of nothing at the centre of the stage.

It is the war. Despatches from the front. Or maybe it’s all staged – done for the Tri-Vees in some studio close by. All the same, the crowd laps it up, a gleam of bloodlust in every eye.

Burckel buys us a table in the far corner, bribing the pale, worm-like waiter heavily for the privilege, a Wache, or ‘minder’ positioning himself at the entrance to our open-sided booth.

‘It’s okay,’ Burckel says, noting how silent I am. ‘You can say what you like. The Wache are all deaf mutes.’

‘So they tell you.’

But Burckel shakes his head. He isn’t having any of it. In fact, he’s grinning now, and as the waiter returns, he seems almost drunk. Burckel orders for us both – pork, potatoes, sauerkraut, gherkins and some savoury potato pancakes, Kartoffelpuffer, of which he knows I’m particularly fond. But my mind’s not on the food. I’m thinking that he’s been alone here too long. Or maybe he’s taken something. Whatever it is, alarm bells have started ringing. I’ve seen agents go like this before.

I wait for him to order, then lean in close.

‘What’s happening, Albrecht?’

‘Happening?’ He looks at me, all innocent, then laughs. ‘I’ve asked some friends to meet us here.’

I stiffen. ‘Friends?’

‘You’ll see.’

I stare at him, then stand. I am prepared to jump; to up and leave, right there and then, but as if sensing what I’m thinking, he reaches up and holds my arm. His expression has changed, that inane grin gone; his eyes are serious now.

‘No, Otto. Stay. Please. You’ll like them. I promise.’

My eyes fix on his. ‘No one is supposed to know that I’m here. I thought you understood that.’

‘I know, but it’s okay. They think you’re a relative. A cousin from the south.’

‘You’ve told them about me?’

He nods. ‘Look, it’s okay. I’ve known them years.’

I stare at him a moment longer, then sit. ‘Friends?’ I ask again. ‘What kind of friends?’

‘You’ll see.’ And he turns away, the smile returning. That same silly smile that made me want to draw my gun and shoot the fucker. He’s lost it. I can see that now. But I wait. And soon they come.

‘Albrecht! And you, you must be Otto.’

I look up and meet his eyes. He’s a big man, his smooth skull glinting red in the tavern’s wavering light. His smile shows perfect teeth. He has his hand out to me, in the age-old, unchanging gesture, but I ignore it. I don’t know who or what he is, and until I do…

Burckel senses my hostility and tries to smooth things over, but I am watching the newcomer, my eyes trying to find something in his, some clue as to who he really is, because I’m sure he’s someone, whatever Burckel says.

A Russian agent, maybe. Or a spy. Working for the fortress.

The two men who are with him are smaller, less significant, and I’m aware of them only as background shapes.

‘Otto,’ Burckel says, half rising from his seat, ‘this is Werner.’ Werner. It’s a good German name. But I’m far from certain that he’s German.

He sits, facing me, not fazed at all by my refusal to shake his hand. His two friends – genetically adapted, I note – seat themselves either side of him, but back a bit, letting him dominate the table.

‘Well, Otto,’ he begins, the smile hovering on his lips, ‘I’ve heard so much.’

I say nothing, just stare at him blankly, angry that Burckel has placed me in this situation. But Burckel clearly doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong. If anything he’s angry at me now, for being so intransigent, so bloody-minded.

‘Don’t mind Otto,’ he says, smiling nervously. ‘He’s tired, that’s all. The journey from the south…’

‘They say the war’s biting hard down there.’

It’s an invitation to break the ice, but I decline it frostily. There’s an awkward clearing of throats, then Werner stands.

‘Maybe we should go. Leave you two alone…’

But Burckel seems anxious that Werner and I be friends. ‘No, stay. Please. It’s Otto’s way, that’s all. Don’t mind him.’

And the readiness with which the three men sit again confirms it for me. Anyone else would have left by now, offended by my behaviour, but they’re staying. Why? Out of friendship with Burckel? No. Something’s fishy here. Smiling suddenly, I cast out my little net.

‘So what do you do, Werner?’

There’s the tiniest little blink of surprise, and then he smiles again. ‘I’m a gene surgeon.’

‘And these?’ I indicate the two who flank him.

‘They’re mine. My children, you might say.’

It’s unexpected. ‘So how do you know Albrecht?’

He sits back, his right arm gesturing to our surroundings. ‘We share a love of the old, I guess.’

I look about me, conscious of what a throwback to the Past this place is. Almost authentic, only the wooden surfaces aren’t wood, just as the stone isn’t stone, but Kunstlichestahl. But then, nothing’s natural here.

‘So how’s business?’

There’s the slightest hesitation before he answers, enough to suggest that he’s carefully considering his words.

‘You know how it is.’

I don’t, but I can guess. Genetics are strictly controlled in this society, and if I remember correctly there are tight restrictions. In all probability our friend caters for the black economy. But I’m not going to ask. It does make me look at him again, however, and though he’s dressed simply – black vest, black baggy trousers and black slip-ons – there’s something groomed about him that suggests he’s not short of money.

‘And you, Otto? How’s the history business?’

I smile, then look to Burckel. From his evident embarrassment I can see he’s let slip far more than he ought.

‘It’s fine,’ I say, and hope that’s innocuous enough. But I’m worried now. Such indiscretion in an agent is bad. It puts all of us at risk. And if Werner is a Russian…

‘Will you have a drink?’

The big man smiles, relaxing slightly. ‘That’d be nice. A beer, please.’

‘And your friends?’

But he shakes his head, and I reassess his relationship with his silent companions, reminding myself that this is, beyond all else, a world of masters and servants.

94

When they’re gone, I quietly ask Burckel what the fuck he thinks he’s doing, and whether he’s had our friend Werner properly checked out. He says he has, but I don’t believe him. In fact, I’m so sure there’s something wrong about the man, that I’m half-convinced I ought to check him out myself. Only that’d be no help to Ernst.

It’s then that I break the rules and ask Burckel directly what Hecht said to him.

‘I can’t say,’ he answers, but he’s having a hard time avoiding my eyes. I get the feeling that he wants to tell me badly, if only to make up for his other indiscretions.

‘But you know why I’m here?’

He shakes his head. So I explain – about Ernst and the energy-trap and how we’ve traced the power-anchor to this point. And it makes me wonder just what was in Hecht’s letter, because if he knew none of that…

Burckel says he can help. He knows someone. He just has to make a call.

I wait, while he goes to make it. And while he’s gone, while I’m looking about me, casually studying the people at nearby tables, it’s then that I have my second shock of the night. There, seated not half a dozen paces from me is an unpleasant little weasel of a man who I last saw back in the twenty-third century.

Dankevich! Urd’s breath! It’s Dankevich!

I quickly turn away, lest he sees me through the latticed wall of the booth. But what am I going to do? If I leave he’ll see me. And if I don’t…

When Burckel returns, I grab his sleeve and pull him down, speaking urgently to his ear. He blinks, surprised, then stares directly at Dankevich, clearly recognising him.

‘Another friend?’ I ask quietly, and he nods.

‘He calls himself Schmidt,’ Burckel says quietly. ‘Andreas Schmidt.’

But there’s no time for more. At that moment, Dankevich stands and, throwing down a couple of credit chips, turns and leaves. I’m up at once, but when Burckel makes to follow, I turn on him.

‘Wait! I’ll come straight back.’

I follow Dankevich out and almost lose him in the street, then see him duck down a side alley and force my way through the crowd, hurrying to catch up. Again, I think I’ve lost him, but then I see him hovering in the shadows just ahead, waiting, it seems, for a door to be opened. As it does, so the light reveals his features once again, removing any last doubts. It’s Dankevich all right – the same bastard I killed. And though I knew he was here, the shock of finding him so close – there in that bar, at a table so near to me – has fed my paranoia to the point where I want to jump right out of there, before the whole damn scheme collapses.

Dankevich. What the fuck was Dankevich doing at that table?

But it confirms what I suspected. The Russians have targeted Burckel. Surrounded him with ‘friends’. And I’ve jumped into this.

I turn and hurry back, but when I get there, Burckel’s gone. I wait close on thirty minutes, then, when he doesn’t show, I settle the bill and leave.

He’s not in his room, nor has he left a message. But just as I begin to lose patience, he returns.

‘This is…’

‘A friend?’ I stare at the man. To my eyes he looks identical to the two goons Werner brought along with him. He’s the very same type. There’s probably a name for it, but I don’t ask Burckel right then. My priority is to dig Burckel out of the mess he’s got himself into.

‘You wanted help,’ the newcomer says. Statement, not question. I look to Burckel, but he’s just grinning again, like he knows something I don’t.

‘It depends what you mean…’ I begin, then understand just why Burckel’s grinning. This is his contact. His man on the inside. The one he made the call to.

He looks to Burckel. ‘Is the room clean?’

‘It was when I left.’

‘Not good enough,’ he says. So we leave the room and ascend, taking the stairs this time, avoiding people, until we’re standing on that great ledge once again, staring out across the misted dark towards the fortress.

‘So what can you tell me?’ I ask, now that he’s free to speak openly.

‘Tell me first why you want to know?’

It seems a fair request, so I tell him. ‘Albrecht and I… we’re Undrehungar. We want to overthrow those fuckers.’

‘Undrehungar…’ He clearly likes the word. Revolutionaries. He says it a second time, then laughs.

‘Albrecht I trust, but why you? How do I know…?’

‘That I’m genuine?’ I shrug. ‘You don’t. You’ll just have to take my word.’

‘I don’t have to.’

‘No. But someone will. Someone will give me the information that I need.’

‘Not everybody knows it.’

But he doesn’t seem smug about it. Once more it’s a statement of fact, and I begin to like our new friend.

‘What’s your name?’

He laughs, and I realise I’m not going to get a name. A name is something that could be tortured out of me, and then maybe he’d find himself in the chair, being tortured.

‘Okay,’ I say finally. ‘Your choice. But I tell you this. There are other forces at work here. They want to preserve things as they are. They don’t want to see this regime fall. They want to prop it up until it decays from within.’

‘And who are these people?’

‘The Russians.’

He laughs, and doesn’t stop chuckling for quite some while, as if it really was amusing. And finally, when he has his voice back, he asks me why the Russians – our deadly enemies – should want to do that.

‘Because they view things in the longer term.’

‘Really? Then watch…’

And, as if on cue, there are a series of blue flashes on the horizon, far to our right, at the eastern edge of the great sprawl of Berlin. I’m puzzled at first, but then our friend hands me a VEU – a visual enhancement unit – and, slipping it over my eyes, I see just what those tiny blue flashes are, and understand. They’re missiles. I see the bright detonations, hear – a moment later – the dull concussions. I watch for some while, seeing how they move oddly, erratically, with a kind of predatory malice, as if they’re looking down at the streets below, searching out specific targets.

‘See how they do that?’ the stranger says. ‘The idea is to terrify the populace. Bigger, faster missiles would be more effective, but those things do far more psychological harm.’

We watch as a swarm of cruisers launch from the fortress, swooping out like great winged insects, heading east over the city to engage the enemy missiles. It’s quite a sight, and we’re not alone on the rooftops as the battle commences. Two of the big lasers open up from the fortress, sending fierce beams of searing light flashing out into the darkness, the after-image so bright it seems scorched upon the retina. The air is sharp with the burning smell of ozone.

And then, with a suddenness that seems almost anti-climactic, it’s over.

I turn and look at him. ‘How often do they do that?’

‘Attack us? Oh, most nights. Sometimes three, even four times. It’s like they want to remind us that it’s not all being fought out on Tri-Vee.’

Burckel, who has been silent all this time, now clears his throat. ‘Well?’ he asks. ‘Will you help us?’

The stranger stares at me, his dark eyes considering, then turns away. ‘We’ll meet tomorrow. I’ll give you a decision then.’

Why not now? I want to ask. But I can guess the answer. Our friend is not working alone. He wants to consult someone. A committee, maybe. Undrehungar – real revolutionaries – not fakes like us.

‘All right,’ I say, keeping my impatience in check. ‘And if there’s anything we can do for you…’

‘You?’ He laughs once more, as if what I’ve said is just the funniest thing he’s heard in years. And, as he walks away, I hear him say a single word, the irony heavy in his voice.

‘Undrehungar…’

95

Burckel is angry with me. He thinks I was heavy-handed. And maybe I was. Only I’m far more angry with him, even if I don’t show it.

‘You don’t know just how long I’ve cultivated my contacts here,’ he says, pacing the floor, the glow globe in the corner illuminating his angry face. ‘You come along here and think in one day you know it all, but you fucking well don’t! You don’t know the first fucking thing about what’s going on!’

I’m sitting on the bed, watching him pace. ‘Have you considered the possibility that they’re spies, or Russians even?’

He stops and stares at me. ‘Of course I’ve fucking thought of it. I’m not stupid. Hecht didn’t pick me for my stupidity.’

That’s true. Only something might have happened. A blow to the head. Some drug slipped into his drink. Anything, in fact. And the result? One ineffective agent who only thinks he’s in control.

But that’s the danger with ‘sitters’. I meet his eyes and give a tired smile. ‘I’m sorry. We seem to have got off on the wrong foot. It’s just… I’m worried. About Ernst.’

That’s also true, but it’s not the whole truth. I’m worried about Katerina. About leaving that situation for too long. For while I could, theoretically, jump back there any time I wanted, I’m still uneasy. Uneasy, yes, and missing her. Missing her badly.

‘So what do you want to do?’ Burckel asks, happier now that I’ve apologised. ‘You know, before the meeting tomorrow. You want to see the city?’

I shake my head. ‘No. First I want to find out about the place Dankevich visited.’

‘Dankevich?’

‘Your friend Schmidt.’

‘Ah…’ He looks thoughtful. ‘You’re sure it was him – Dankevich?’

‘I’m certain of it. I killed the little fucker.’

‘Then…?’

‘Different part of the loop,’ I say. Even so, it’s disconcerting how often I’ve killed men, only for them to pop up once again. That’s the trouble with Time: it’s not sequential.

‘You want to do that first thing tomorrow?’

I stand and shake my head. ‘No. Let’s do it now. After all, who knows what mischief that little weasel is up to.’

96

It’s a little after two when we get back there. Von Richtofen Strasse is still busy, but there’s not the dense press of bodies there was earlier. Tomorrow’s a work day for most, and life can be hard in the eye of the fortress – even so, enough remain to make the night eventful.

‘Ignore the jags,’ Burckel says to me, steering me away from a group of young men who sway drunkenly together outside one of the bars. ‘We don’t want any trouble.’

‘Jags?’ But even as I say it, it comes back to me. It’s a catch-all phrase for drunks and lowlifes and addicts.

The side alley is empty. Telling Burckel to wait for me on the corner, I walk along until I’m facing the door Dankevich went into. There’s no sign, not a word to say what the place is, but I guess it must be some kind of club from the peephole in the door. And someone is clearly watching from the other side, for as I go to turn away, the door opens and a big man – he has to crouch to get out under the lintel – steps into the alley.

‘What do you want?’

It’s too late to say ‘nothing’. He’s seen that I’m interested. But I don’t really want to go inside, not if Dankevich is still there. I just want to know what the place is.

‘A friend of mine said you were worth a visit.’ I hesitate, then, ‘I’m from the south…’

‘Ah…’ And he looks me up and down, then nods to himself. These Berliners think they’re a good ten IQ points above their southern German cousins, and have done since time immemorial.

‘Your friend… did he have a name?’

I’m tempted to say Schmidt, but if Dankevich is inside…

‘Look, if I’m not welcome…’

There’s a moment’s calculation in his face and then he stands aside. It’s not an easy thing for such a big man to do in such a small alley, but now I can’t back out. I could walk away, only that would just draw attention, and I’m pretty sure they’ve got me on camera. And if they are Russians…

As the door closes behind me, I stand there in that tiny anteroom, conscious of his sheer size, his bulk and height. I’m a tall man myself, but this brute’s a good foot and a half taller than me. Not only that, but he has hands the size of dinner plates. And they look incredibly strong.

There’s another door directly in front of us, and while we wait for it to open, I feel intensely claustrophobic standing beside the big man. He seems to loom over me – to fill the room about me. I can smell the brutish perfume of the man – his scent. It’s an uncomfortable feeling, and I wonder again just what I’ve got myself into.

Even so, I have an answer. The club is called Das Rothaarige – ‘The Red-Haired One’. The two words are on a plaque beside the inner door, beneath a cameo of a long-haired man.

Red hair. It makes me think. Of Barbarossa, the red-bearded king of early Germany, and of Hitler’s Russian campaign, named after him. Yes, and of the Rus’, themselves, named after the band of red-haired Scandinavians who formed Kievan Rus’, back in the middle of the tenth century.

The door doesn’t open. Beside me the big man grows restless. I turn, meaning to ask him what the problem is, and see he has one of those massive hands to his ear, listening to something in his head. He nods silently, then turns to face the outer door, speaking to me as he does.

‘It seems your friend wants to come in too.’

‘My friend?’ But then I see what he means and I almost groan. Why can’t Burckel leave things be?

The door swings open.

‘Otto, I—’

The big man grabs him, pulls him inside, then slams the door shut.

Almost at once the inner door opens, to the smell of cigar smoke and cologne and the soft murmur of conversation, interlaced with electronic music. Nothing loud or intrusive, the kind of thing that you might expect in such a club at any time, in any century. Stockhausen’s Licht, if I’m not mistaken.

It’s a gambling club, I see that at once, nor is it very big. I turn to thank the big man, but he’s gone. In his place stands another man: small, almost arrow-thin, a polite, yet genuinely friendly smile on his face. He would seem ordinary, but for his flame-red shoulder-length hair.

‘Herren…’

I return his bow, then note how he glances at Burckel.

‘You should have said,’ he says, returning his gaze to me.

‘Said?’

‘That you were Herr Burckel’s cousin.’

Again, my heart sinks. Is there not one place that Burckel hasn’t made waves?

‘I wondered about the name…’

Rothaarige smiles, then reaches up to touch the loose-hanging ends of his hair. ‘It’s not hair,’ he explains. ‘Not real hair, anyway.’

I wait for something more, but it seems that’s all he has to say on the subject. ‘You’d like to play, Herren?’

I turn and look around the tables. There are six big, hexagonal tables with blue electrostatic tops. They’re crowded, a dozen or more players – well-dressed men, mainly – standing about them, but there’s no sign of Dankevich, nor can I see any other familiar faces.

I feel in my pocket then shrug. ‘My money, I—’

Rothaarige smiles. ‘Herr Burckel’s credit is good. What would you like? A thousand marks?’

It’s more than a month’s wages in this world, but the players in here don’t look like working men.

‘Okay. But that’s all.’

He laughs. ‘I’d heard you suden Deutsch were cautious.’

If it’s meant to goad me, it doesn’t work. Cautious is good. I only wish Burckel was showing more caution.

The truth is, I hate gambling and I want to get out of there as soon as possible, but leaving isn’t an option. Not yet. I really need to know why our friend Dankevich frequents this place. Is he a gambler? If so, how can I use that?

But underlying all my thoughts is the feeling that I have made a mistake by coming here. Maybe a big mistake.

A young man appears at my side and hands me what appear to be ten six-inch iron-black plastic spikes. They’re pointed at one end, flattened at the other, like ancient nails. Indeed, the similarity is so striking that I stare at them in my hand, until Rothaarige laughs.

‘You’ve not gambled before, Herr…’

He’s fishing for my second name, but I ignore him. ‘One hundred each?’ I ask, and he nods, then ushers us over to the nearest table. The crowd move aside, allowing us a place, and, glancing down, I see that the blue glow of the table is an illusion. Marked out within the great hexagon is something I recognise instantly.

At the centre of the table are two diagrams, each circle in each diagram the size of a large coin. Some are brightly lit, some grey. The top one is the chemical diagram for the adenine-thymine base pair, white lines linking the represented atoms, while beneath it is that of the guanine-cytosine bases. Between them they make up the constituents of DNA and thus of life itself. All life. And there, surrounding them, forming a great circle at the edge of the table, is the double helix spiral itself.

Again, some parts of that great circle are lit, while others are dull, and even as I watch, one of the circles – representing a carbon atom – comes alive suddenly, and I feel excitement grow about the table.

‘I call it the Game of Life,’ Rothaarige says quietly to my ear, ‘though the common herd know it as Spirals. You know it?’

I wonder what’s best, to bluff, or show my ignorance. But I’m curious now, and he seems willing to explain.

‘Each player buys his cards, one hundred a card, a minimum of five cards, maximum ten. Play progresses clockwise from the dealer. Each player chooses one card from his hand at each turn. And no huffing. If you can play a card, you must.’

I look about me, seeing how, in front of each player, there’s a tiny glade of plastic spikes, like miniature pines, stretching out from the dark cushion at the edge of the table, and how, just beneath my hand, the table is mottled with tiny holes. Some of the spikes are lit, others dark.

‘Should I buy my cards now?’

‘I’m afraid that’s not allowed,’ Rothaarige says kindly. ‘Not until this round is over. You see, the winner is the one who plays the last card. It would be unfair if you were to enter the game now, after so much has already been staked.’

‘I see.’ And I do, but only vaguely, and so he continues.

‘There are fifty-nine circles in all, but one hundred and eighteen cards… two packs, essentially. The idea is to match a card in your hand with one of the circles on the table. You slip the card into the slot just there. Any player who completes one of the four bases gets a reward – one twelfth of the existing stake. Similarly, a player who completes one of the pairings is also rewarded – only this time one sixth of the total stake. The greatest reward, however, goes to the player who plays the final card. He claims a full half of what remains.’

‘And the rest?’

‘Goes to the house, of course.’ Rothaarige smiles at me. ‘Though not all of it. One third of the house’s profit becomes the players’ stake in the greater game, though they must continue playing if they want to lay claim to it. If they drop out… well…’

My eyes trace the great, circular double helix and note, once again, how certain parts are lit, others dark.

‘I don’t follow you…’

‘It’s simple. Whoever finishes one of the base pair can claim a matching pair on the outer spiral. AT or CG, or their inverse pairings. If they can then complete a minor groove, or even a major, they are rewarded further.’

‘A minor being…?’

‘Four consecutive strands, a major six.’

‘Ah…’ And, looking once more, I see how far any of the players are from such rewards. But the night is young and the players keen. I make a quick calculation and begin to understand why the small man laughed at my thousand. It would go nowhere in this game, not with more than eight players at the table.

I watch, seeing how the circles light up, one after another. There’s a small cry of delight as one of the players, a stooped old greybeard, completes the Thymine base. A moment later, a dozen or so of the spikes in front of him – previously dark – light up, bringing a warm glow to his deeply lined face.

It’s twenty minutes before I finally get to play. Rothaarige’s gone now, but Burckel seems keen to help. He’s played before and, as I’m handed my cards, he tries to take them from me.

I bat his hand away.

Burckel frowns. ‘I was only…’

I glare at him, then sort my cards and look to the table. I have ten cards – ten options on the board. I can see already how tactical this game can be, how, if one kept back two matching cards, one might win. Given luck. Only the point is I want to lose. To get out of there as quickly as I can.

I play, ignoring Burckel, making him sigh with exasperation.

‘Otto, that was foolish…’

I say nothing. Watch my ten cards dwindle to two, realising that the meagre little copse of spikes below me are all dark.

‘You want to increase your stake?’ Burckel asks. ‘You can if you want, Otto. I—’

‘Albrecht.’

He falls silent.

I play my penultimate card. There are eight players, and though three of them are unable to play – their cards are doubles of cards already played and therefore worthless – there are still eight unlit circles on the table, evenly distributed, two to a base.

The fun starts here.

I watch as the play moves away from me around the table. Cytosine is quickly claimed. Other circles brighten. The player two to my right joins those unable to play, his two remaining cards doubles.

There are two circles unlit in Guanine and I have one of them, the rare N9. I hold my breath as my neighbour slips his final card into the slot. There’s the briefest pause while the machine registers the play, and then the unlit C1 atom on the Guanine lights and I know I’ve won.

Burckel whoops. This particular game may be over for us, but we’ve won back our stake. Not only that, but I’ve earned one strand in the greater game.

I speak to Burckel’s ear. ‘We have to go.’

‘But you can’t,’ he answers openly, not caring if he’s overheard. ‘You have a presence now, on the outer spiral.’

‘That’s a loser’s game, Albrecht.’

‘I’ll stake you.’

‘That’s not the point. We need to go.’

Rothaarige appears at my elbow and gently touches my arm. ‘Well done, Otto. That was subtly played. Next time, perhaps, you’ll—’

He stops abruptly, turning, as we all do, to face the hammering at the outer door. He seems concerned, and I wonder for the first time whether this is legal. Then I notice how his hair seems to ripple. There’s the faintest light flowing through it, as if through fibre-optics, and as it does, so he seems to calm. Smiling his apologies, he walks towards the door, even as it opens.

Rothaarige is a small man, but he seems to make himself even smaller as he nears the door, cringing almost, apologetic. And then I see why. Coming through the door, literally having to squeeze through it merely to get inside, is a monster of a man, so big that I wonder how both he and the doorman managed to get into that tiny ante-room. He’s masked, yet even so, all there know who, or rather what, he is.

‘Welcome, Guildsman,’ Rothaarige says, his voice unctuous now, his whole manner suddenly, strangely servile. Or maybe not so strange. The Guild of the Teuton Knights is not to be messed with.

The Guildsman turns, scanning the room as if for enemies, then fixes the small man in his visored sight.

‘Is the room prepared?’

Rothaarige nods and bows low. ‘Of course, Guildsman. If you would come with me.’

But as I glance at those close by, I see how every eye is now averted, as if the Guildsman is not there, and though I’m curious to see one of them, I do likewise. Yet maybe I’ve seen enough. He’s like a piece of crafted metal, his armoured exoskeleton more insectile than human, his hands like massive instruments of torture. And his eyes…

Mechanical yet human. The nearest thing to a machine, and yet alive.

Beside me, Burckel shudders, and as the door shuts on the far side of the gaming room, he murmurs something.

‘What?’

Burckel looks to me, his eyes haunted. ‘I hate those bastards.’

But he says no more. He’s not allowed to. We both know what’s to come, but of it we are not allowed to speak, not even to each other.

‘Come,’ I say, now that Rothaarige has gone. ‘I want out of here. Now.’

97

A Teuton guildsman and a Russian agent, both frequenting the same club. As we walk back down the levels to Burckel’s apartment, I ponder whether there might be a connection, and if so of what kind. Was the Guildsman merely a player, or was he there to meet someone – Dankevich, perhaps? Or was it just coincidence? Whichever, I don’t mention any of this to Burckel. He, for his part, is annoyed with me for coming away before we’d had the chance to make a line of four, or maybe even six.

‘You’re a lucky man, Otto,’ he says, as he turns the lock and pushes open the door. ‘But you ought to trust your luck, not shun it.’

I follow him inside, making no comment, wondering just where the hell I’m supposed to sleep in this mess.

‘I’m sorry it’s so…’ And then he laughs. ‘I never was tidy. Even as a child, in the Garden. I—’

I stare at him, shocked. ‘Albrecht! Have you forgotten?’

‘Forgotten? No, I…’ And then he laughs again, but this time it’s in embarrassment. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not supposed to speak of that, am I? It’s—’

Secret, yes.

I contemplate jumping right out of there at once, but decide against it. Burckel clearly doesn’t know what he’s done and I’m not about to panic him. Even so, I change my plans. Hecht needs to know about this, and soon.

I look about me for the makings of another bed, but there’s nothing, only piles of clutter. Burckel, however, seems unperturbed. ‘You have the bed,’ he says. ‘I’ll make myself comfortable on the floor.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course. And look – you have to forgive me, Otto. I’ve not been myself tonight. If I’ve been a little indiscreet, well, I’m sorry, only it’s been so long since I’ve had company. Someone I can trust.’

It’s only a small glimpse, but suddenly I see how vulnerable he’s felt being here. And little wonder, really, for this is the most dangerous place of all. Here at the fulcrum. Here where it all begins.

‘That’s okay,’ I say, softening to him for the first time. ‘It must have been hard.’

‘Hard?’ Burckel sighs. ‘You just don’t know, Otto. You really don’t.’

98

I hear his breathing change, and when the pattern of his snoring becomes regular, I get up and, careful not to knock anything over in the dark, make my way to his desk and find the journal.

I’m sure the answer’s here. And so, clutching the heavy volume to my chest, I jump. Back to Four-Oh. Back to Zarah and Urte – and Hecht.

Hecht is surprised to see me. He asks me what I’ve got, and so I show him, and, because this is not a specialty of his, he calls in Lothar, our expert in ge’not, and, throwing up an image of the last page on a screen, Lothar reads a passage aloud.

The translation sounds awkward, the words like an ill put-together poem, but when I query this, Lothar just smiles.

‘What you’re hearing is just one level of it, Otto. In ge’not the words are paired, like the genetic bases they derive from – “twisted together”, you might say. I would need to work on this a while to get the full meaning of it. It’s heavily concept-based… it works at a higher level than normal everyday language. I liken it to Chinese poetry. It doesn’t have one single, defined meaning.’

‘I see. Then to translate this whole volume…?’

‘Oh, I’ll have it back to you within the hour. Our machines can do the basic stuff. But what are you looking for?’

I tell him and he hurries away, even as Hecht looks up at me again.

‘What’s happening, Otto? Why did you jump back so soon?’

‘I think Albrecht’s cracking up. His conditioning has gone. He… mentioned the Garden.’

‘Loki’s breath!’ Hecht rarely curses, so the words have added force. ‘Wait here, Otto. Make yourself at home. I’ll not be long.’

I watch him go, then turn, looking about me at the shadowed room. I have been here many times, but I’ve never been alone here and, more from curiosity than anything, I walk across and, calling for light, pour myself a coffee, then turn back, studying what’s on Hecht’s shelves. He might be back at any moment, but I’m certain he wouldn’t mind. After all, he trusts me. I am his Einzelkind.

It takes but a glance to realise that the books here are sorted into four distinct sections. The first of these is familiar to me – classics of Russian and German literature, from that brief flowering of the novel, that Golden Age of literary endeavour. They’re first editions, by the look of them: Pushkin and Lermontov, Gogol, Chekhov, Turgenev and Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Pasternak and Gorky, Zamatin, Solzhenitsyn and Pelevin; Fontaine and Schiller, Goethe, Holderlin and Kleist, Nietzsche and Rilke, Mann, Hesse and Grass. There are others too, lesser writers, forgotten by the tide of history, yet not a single great work is absent, and, taking one from the shelf – Hesse’s Magister Ludi – I open it and read the handwritten dedication:

‘To Hecht, with profound thanks and in eternal friendship, Hermann Hesse.’

The ink seems fresh as yesterday, the book just off the press.

I smile, then pluck another from the shelves. They’re all the same. In each one is a personal dedication.

Hecht has been busy.

To their right is a second section. There are novels here too, and histories, of individual men and of nations, yet not a single book is familiar. These are from alternate timestreams, documents from cultures that have ceased to be: that blinked out of existence as some Zeitverandern – some Time-Change – swept it all to dust.

The books here are mainly in German or Russian – the lives of so-called ‘great men’. And so they might have been, but not in our time. No, in our world, these died, or never were, or were deflected from their paths to ‘greatness’ by some chance event.

I take one down – a study of Charles the Bountiful – and, flicking through, begin to read, then laugh with surprise. This is my period, my century – Frederick’s century – and yet there’s no sign of him anywhere in this account. In this world, Prussia does not exist, nor any of the minor German states. No, all is Frankish here, from the shores of Portugal to the Urals. The heirs of Charlemagne are rulers in this world. Or should I say the heir, for in this reality Charlemagne’s son, Charles the Bold, had his brothers Lothar and Louis killed, and so there never was a division of the kingdom into three, no Kingdom of the Germans east of the Rhine.

I slip the book back, then move on. This next section – the third – is perhaps the strangest of all, for here are endless volumes written, it seems, in gibberish, or in code, or what might pass as code if I didn’t recognise one or two of them from my travels. These once again are from alternate time-lines, only these are in strange, hybrid languages that only Lothar and his team could possibly read; worlds so far from the central flow of Time that our agents have but touched upon them briefly and withdrawn, bringing these trophies back.

You might ask how. After all, nothing that is not made of our genetic material can be brought back from the past. They would disintegrate the moment they appeared on the platform. And that remains the truth. Only we have built machines – duplicators – that can be taken back by agents and used to copy most of the smaller artefacts we need if we’re to function in the Past: books, brooches and coins, maps and medals, weapons, jewellery and a hundred other necessary objects. Without them we could not function. Without them… well, we might as soon jump back naked.

I drain my coffee and, setting the cup down, walk over to the final set of shelves.

These are different from the others; the shelves are much broader, and sub-divided into cubbyholes. Inside each cubbyhole is a set of ancient scrolls. Or not so ancient, for these too seem freshly made – the parchment new, or at most a few years old.

Again I smile. These I know about, for Hecht has sometimes leant me a ‘book’ or two from this part of his private library. They’re in Greek and Latin for the main part, ‘lost’ works by the great writers of the pre-Christian era. Aristotle’s complete Dialogues is here, along with ‘new’ works by Catullus, Seneca and Epicurus. Archimedes’ earliest mathematical works are also here, next to poetry by Sappho and – a gem among many gems – Julius Caesar’s private journals. And lurid reading they make, too.

But that’s not all. Beside these works by writers known to Time, are others by authors whose work – unpublished, or forgotten – are easily their equal. The Genoan, Augusto Landucci’s epic Rebirth cycle is here, for instance, written sixty years before Dante’s Inferno, and easily its superior – just one of many classics that were suppressed or openly destroyed by rivals, or by the church, or simply lost through circumstance.

I take one down and, unfurling it, read a line or two. It’s Virgil’s Juvenilia – the complete and amended version.

I look about me at the shelves, wondering a moment.

So much lost. So much forgotten. So much endeavour to so little purpose. Yes, and so many lives gone to dust and not a trace of them. Those mute inglorious Tams.

I return the scroll to its place then turn to find Hecht standing there, his face strange, his eyes oddly distracted.

‘Is everything okay?’

‘Yes…’ He stops and looks at me. His grey eyes are pained. ‘I thought for a moment we were undone. If they had got to the Garden…’

The Garden is where our children are. Cut off in Time and Space from any harm. Not even Zarah knows its whereabouts. Only Hecht knows, and the machine. And without Hecht’s physical presence on the platform, the path to that safest of all havens is closed.

‘All’s well?’

He nods. ‘I’ve made changes. Reprogrammed the machine. Even so… the very fact that his conditioning’s failed… It shouldn’t be possible.’

No, and it’s never happened before. But then, a lot’s been happening recently that’s not supposed to happen, and that doesn’t augur well. We’ve kept ahead of the Russians for so long that we deemed it our right, as if History were ours, but now they’ve got the upper hand. Maybe it’s sheer numbers, but they seem to have the jump on us at last.

As Hecht settles into his pit and begins to tap away at his keyboard, I tell him exactly what happened back down the line in Albrecht’s time. Occasionally he tuts, or glances up, but mainly he listens until I’m done, and then he shakes his head.

‘I think you’re right, Otto. I think the Russians have surrounded him. But let’s persevere. Find out what they’re up to. It might prove crucial. Besides, we’ve no chance at all of saving Ernst unless Albrecht’s friend can find the power source for us. Hang in there. Meanwhile, I’ll rustle up some cover. And don’t worry, Otto. You won’t be alone in there, I promise you.’

‘There’s one other thing.’

‘Go on.’

‘I don’t know enough about the Age. I feel unprepared. And I don’t know how much I can rely on Albrecht to fill in the gaps. Maybe I should—’

Hecht cuts me off. ‘I take your point, Otto, but there’s no time. As soon as we know what’s in the journal, I want you straight back in.’

I make to protest, to remind him that we’ve all the time in the world, but for once Hecht is adamant. ‘Don’t fuss, Otto. You don’t need to know any more than you do already.’

I don’t argue. Besides, most men know little of the Ages they inhabit. It’s only later, historically, that they begin to make sense of things. But I like being in control, and this once I don’t feel I’ve got a solid grasp on anything. That’s what I want to say to Hecht. Only I don’t know that I should. He trusts me, after all.

He meets my eyes. ‘Is there anything else?’

‘No.’

‘Then go and see Lothar. I’ll join you there in an hour.’

I realise I’m dismissed, and so I turn and leave, unhappy for once. Maybe that business with the Garden has got to Hecht, but I’ve never known him so off-hand. Not to me, anyway.

Lothar, however, is glad to see me. His team – himself and two assistants, red-headed young men who look as if they could be twins but for a difference of ten years in their ages – have already got a dozen or more pages ready for me to read.

I sit down at one of the long benches, among the piles of foreign dictionaries and lexicons that clutter the desks, and begin to read. The walls surrounding me are stacked high with yet more volumes, and there’s the smell of coffee in the air.

Lothar leans across. ‘The top line – the blue – is the literal translation, the bottom – the red – the metaphoric commentary. The idea is to try and read the two in tandem. Of course, it’s not as satisfactory as reading the original, but…’

I try it and see what he means. He throws up an image of the first few symbols on a nearby screen. They look like ornate iron-work – the kind you see on the gates of eighteenth-century mansions, all curls and curlicues and delicate spikes – only so fine as to be almost mesmeric to the eye; more like Arabic than Chinese.

‘You know how ge’not developed?’ Lothar asks, and when I don’t respond, he continues anyway. ‘It sprang from the need to keep up with developments in genetics. The abbreviation stands for “genetic notation”. It’s a kind of shorthand for the basic concepts of genetics. Or so it was intended. Only by the time two or three centuries had passed there were more than fifty thousand separate characters, each one describing something highly specific. Most of them are derived, of course, from the basic one hundred and forty-two root symbols, and the whole language – if I can call it such – has been through three major revisions in its time, but the basic emphasis of the language – as a direct reflection of a single field of human activity, genetics – remains unchanged.’

Even as Lothar speaks, more pages arrive, fresh from translation, numbered and dated so that he can sort them into order for me. I look through, half concentrating on what Burckel has written, half on what Lothar is telling me.

‘At first ge’not was used almost exclusively by geneticists, but later…’ He laughs, and I look up. Lothar is smiling, anticipating his own story. ‘You’d not believe it, really, Otto, but it took a poet – Angossi, an Italian! – to use ge’not, part pictorially but also for its metaphoric richness. You’ve heard of Angossi?’

Who hadn’t? But I indulge Lothar with a smile, as if it’s the first time I’ve heard all this.

‘In Angossi’s hands, what was mere transliteration became poetic flight of fancy. He organised the language into a new, fragmented form – much like what we see here in Burckel’s journal. These are not so much sentences or paragraphs as… well, how do I put it? The purest ge’not is a form of maths. It quite literally adds up. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t make sense. You see, every symbol has its own value, its own weight, and—’

I interrupt. ‘Hold on… how on earth do they ever use such a difficult language? I mean, if it’s so varied, so rich in meaning and yet also so mathematically precise?’

Lothar chuckles. ‘They don’t. Verwendung ge’not – that is, “used” ge’not – is a bastardised form, based on the two thousand eight hundred and sixty symbols Angossi chose from among the totality. Considering what he omitted it’s quite subtle really, though nothing like as expressive as it might have been.’ He sighs. ‘If only Angossi had been a better linguist. Still, it’s got more clever over the generations – become almost a creole, if you know what I mean.’

I nod, then whistle to myself, as I read what Burckel has written at the foot of the page

‘Have you read any of these yet?’

Lothar shakes his head. ‘Not in the full sense of it. Words, phrases… Why, what does it say?’

But I’m up out of my seat and at the door. I want Hecht to see this and I can’t wait another hour.

99

I jump back, precisely to the point I left. Not a second has passed. Even so, Burckel senses I’ve been gone. He wakes and sits up in the darkness.

‘Otto? Is that you?’

‘It’s me,’ I say, and, sliding the journal back into place, I make my way carefully back to the bed.

‘Did you go back?’

I hesitate, sitting on the edge of that narrow pallet bed, then decide to tell him the truth. Or part of it.

‘Yes. I was worried. Especially about Dankevich.’

‘I didn’t know he was a Russian. But now that I do…’

I don’t like the fact that I can’t see Burckel, but it’s late and I don’t want to put on the light.

‘We’ll talk in the morning,’ I say. ‘I’m tired.’

‘Was Hecht angry with me?’

‘Why should he be angry?’

‘For letting slip about the Garden. I’ve been worrying about it ever since you pointed it out. Worried he might think me… unreliable.’

It is precisely what Hecht thinks, but I don’t say that.

‘Go to sleep, Albrecht. We’ll talk about it in the morning.’

100

Only we don’t. We’re woken just before dawn by a banging on the door that would wake the dead.

While I’m still struggling up from sleep, Burckel calls for light, then throws me a gun. Jumping up, he goes across to the door and peers through the peephole, then reaches for the bolt and draws it back.

It’s Burckel’s friend, the nameless one. The revolutionary. He tells us to get dressed quickly and come with him. He hands us each a pass, marked TEMPORARY ACCESS ONLY, and when I ask him where we’re going, he just shakes his head and says: ‘Don’t speak. Not a word. And leave the guns. You won’t need them where we’re going.’

I don’t like the situation – I don’t like having to trust strangers in an Age I don’t really know – but there seems little choice.

Out in the corridor he turns left, ignoring the distracting images on the walls, walking with a quick and easy stride.

But we don’t go far. Coming to a small door set into the wall, we stop. It’s another lift, I realise, a small, service lift. Our friend takes a flat octagonal piece of plastic from his pocket and places it in the slot. A small overhead camera scans him and accepts his ID. Maintenance, I realise. Our friend works in maintenance.

The door hisses open and we step inside. Standing there in that narrow, box-like space, I stare into Burckel’s eyes, seeing not the slightest flicker of the madness I think may have overtaken him. In fact, he looks so sane that I have to remind myself of that slip about the Garden, yes, and that journal entry too. If he could say those things then potentially he could do anything – maybe place all our lives at risk. Only not just yet. The moment hasn’t come. Albrecht Burckel has yet to be tested, and until he is, I need him, because he’s my key to these people and these people are my key to freeing Ernst.

I have my orders, you understand. And one of them is to kill him once we’re finished here.

Burckel smiles, but I haven’t the heart to smile back. It would be cruel. And so he looks away, taking my seriousness for nerves or concentration on the task in hand.

We descend, the lift slowly rattling down the levels, until, with the slightest jerk, it stops.

Our friend moves past me, sliding the inner door back.

I watch him. See how small and neat his hands are, yet he’s heavily muscled. Every movement is smooth and practised. Yet before he steps out of the lift, he turns and looks at each of us in turn, as if to check some final detail. Satisfied, he steps outside.

It’s dark at this level. There are maintenance lights, but they are only every ten metres or so, and the walls are bare, stained by the damp.

‘Remember,’ he says. ‘Not a word. And act subservient, if you can. These people can be very touchy. Keep your heads down and don’t meet their eyes.’

I don’t know what he means, but we soon find out. He walks us down a long corridor and out into a broad, well-lit hallway. There’s a chain fence here, blocking our way, and cameras, lots of cameras. Beyond is luxury. Plush carpets and paintings on the walls. Statuary and fountains. One of the enclaves.

Two men – big men, private guards – step out to block our way.

We show them our passes. While one of them checks them, the other eyes us. Like Burckel I keep my head lowered, my eyes on the ground before me, but I can sense the guard’s hostility, his disgust. He thinks we’re shit. A thousand miles beneath him. And that gives me a better inkling of this world – of what makes it tick – than anything I’ve yet encountered. This is a world of hierarchies, of rigid social orders.

We are passed through, down the plush corridor and into a dimly lit yet delicately scented room. Beyond it is another, bigger room, smelling of oil and machinery. And there, on the far side of the room, is a flyer – a Schweben-wagen. As we go across, our friend calls for light, and in the sudden brightness, we see it in all its polished beauty. It’s a bright metallic green, its curved lines giving it the look of a tapered rocket, like a massive crossbow bolt. Its glass cockpit is ridged and armoured, and its twin exhausts look powerful enough to take it into orbit.

‘It’s a Steuermann L-8,’ our friend says. ‘There aren’t that many of them.’ He smiles and puts his hand fondly on one of the smooth chrome tail fins. ‘They’ve quite a range. You could reach Moscow in one of these without recharging.’

I’m not sure why he looks at me as he says that, but I sense it has something to do with my comment the other day – about the Russians. Maybe he thinks I’m a Russian spy. Or maybe he’s just teasing.

‘Okay,’ he says, touching a panel on the side. ‘Get in the back.’

As the door hisses open and lifts, I look to Burckel, but he seems as surprised as me. It’s a beautiful machine, but I’m not sure I want to fly around in it. Yet it seems we’ve no choice. We climb in, sinking into the scented white leather of those luxurious seats.

I want to ask him what the deal is. This clearly can’t be his. But cameras are watching, and he’s told us not to speak.

He climbs into the front, and as the door locks shut he buckles himself in, then reaches out and starts the flyer up. There’s the faintest vibration, and then the Steuermann lifts gently. As it does so the whole of the wall in front of us hisses open and we glide forward, out into the exit tunnel, the Steuermann moving smoothly, effortlessly on a cushion of air.

Our friend slows to a halt in front of a panel of lights, then, as the configuration changes and the outer door slides open, slips the flyer out into one of the air-lanes, banking to the left, then straightening out again, accelerating as he does so, joining the flowing stream of traffic in the massive concourse.

He handles the machine beautifully, climbing, banking, turning, finding his way without hesitation through the maze of giant tunnels. I relax, enjoying the sensation of flight, easing back in my seat, staring out at the massive struts and slabs that seem to flit by at a frightening pace.

There’s never been a city like Neu Berlin, not before or since, and though much of it is architecturally quite brutal, its scale is something else.

Minutes pass, and then we slow again, finally coming to a halt at a major junction. There’s a huge vertical shaft just ahead of us. I lean forward, looking up through the glass of the cockpit. It’s like someone has dropped a massive rock through the city’s levels. Up there, a long way up, I can glimpse the morning sky, though down here it’s dark, the walls studded with faintly glowing lamps, embedded in the fine crash-mesh that covers every surface.

Our friend waits, watching the signal panel, then eases forward gently, beginning his descent. Down we go, down and down and down, until I wonder just how much further we can go. And then we stop.

Just across from us is a guard post. It’s the only brightly lit point in the sea of darkness that stretches away on all sides. The ceiling here is fifty yards above us, yet despite the scale of things it feels intensely claustrophobic. The whole weight of the city seems to press down on us.

The lone guard yawns, sets his paper down, scratches himself, then steps out and comes across.

‘Hi, Henny,’ he says, as our friend raises the door. ‘Nice flyer.’

They talk for a while. Inconsequential stuff. But I now know more about our friend than he would probably wish. A name, an occupation. So much for his anonymity.

Henny. It could be Heinrich. Unless that’s his second name.

Eventually they exchange papers and, closing the door, we fly on, our headlights penetrating the darkness, until, in their glare, we see a big, low building of steel and glass. It looks old, abandoned. We steer to the right, and as we do, a queue of other flyers comes into sight, their engines idling, waiting to be admitted, but he ignores them, glides past and on round the back of the massive building, then slows as we approach a ramp.

There are more guards, armed this time and wearing body armour and visors.

‘It’s a secure area,’ he says quietly. ‘They’ll need to see your passes.’

One of the guards steps up and, seeing us in the back, gestures with his gun for our friend to open up.

‘Who are these?’

‘I’m taking them to see the Supervisor. He’s expecting them.’

The guard takes our passes, scans them, then straightens, listening to something in his head. He nods and hands them back. ‘Okay. Go through.’

The gate opens and we glide inside, into some kind of airlock. As the doors slam shut behind us, three men approach, scanning the flyer with tiny, hand-held sensors. Looking about me I note the automated guns that are trained on us.

Satisfied, the three step back. One of them raises his hand. A moment later the inner doors hiss open and we go through.

The noise and activity hit us at once. It’s a regular beehive. To both sides the Werkstätte are stacked up, floor to ceiling, each one a fully equipped service station, hundreds of them, piled one atop another, level after level, the single row in front of us stretching away out of sight, one of Urd knows how many rows.

I am astonished. It’s a giant repair and maintenance shop. Big enough, by the look of it, to cope with half of Neu Berlin.

As we glide slowly down the row I look about me. Technicians are busy everywhere, working on flyers of every shape and size. The bright flash of welding arcs and the buzz of machinery form a stark contrast to the darkness and silence outside. The whole place must be sound-dampened. Our friend ‘Henny’ seems to have relaxed now that he’s inside, and he half turns to us, even as he steers the big Steuermann towards the far side of the hangar.

‘Its okay. You can talk now if you want. There are cameras here, but it’s our people monitoring them.’

‘Your people?’

He smiles, then slows the craft and eases it over to the right. ‘That’s right. The Unbeachtet.’

The unnoticed. The ignored.

I smile. ‘I like the name. And the Supervisor?’

‘He’ll see us when he can. Maybe an hour from now. It depends.’

‘But I thought—’

He kills the engine, and, as the flyer slowly sinks to the ground, he turns, looking directly at me, his grey eyes serious.

‘Be patient, Otto. He’s a very busy man. You’re lucky that he’s seeing you at all.’

101

We hang around, waiting, wondering if the delay’s deliberate, to make some kind of point, yet when our friend returns, he seems apologetic.

‘I’m sorry. There was a problem. But he can see you now.’

He leads us up a dozen flights of steps and then out along a kind of wire mesh walkway that leads across and between the stacks, high up, near the ceiling itself. At the far end of it is a kind of metallic cabin. It looks makeshift, hanging there by four great chains from the ceiling overhead, yet the underneath of it bristles with guns and cameras, and I wonder why.

The walkway ends at a gate. Our friend unlocks it and lets us through. It’s not much of a barrier, but I can see its usefulness. It’s not meant to stop anyone, it’s meant to delay. The guns overhead would do the rest.

I step inside, following our guide, expecting what? A control room of some kind, maybe. But it’s nothing of the sort. It’s a simple living space. There’s a bed in the corner and another to my right. There’s a small kitchen, marked off to my left and, in the centre, two old-fashioned sofas and a coffee table. Shelves of books fill every other bit of wall space. But this much I take in only at a glance, for my attention is immediately taken by the Supervisor and his companion.

‘Urd’s breath,’ Burckel whispers beside me. ‘I never thought…’

The Supervisor is a small man, unimpressive in all but one aspect. His head. As he stands and smiles a welcome, so ancient instincts awake in me, making my skin crawl; the hairs at the back of my neck stand up.

The skull is huge, like two skulls sewn together, side by side, the strange double bulge of the hairless dome tapering down to a boney ridge that seems to sit like a frill beneath both ears and around the top of his neck. Broad shoulders and massive neck muscles hold the doubled head in place, but otherwise his body’s fairly normal. Nor is he alone. His companion, smaller than him and clearly female, has the same shaped head. Her smile is very like his, her mouth tiny in that broad face.

I’ve read about this. It was a Mechanist trick, to put two brains into one skull and somehow make it work, linking the two with bridges of ultra-fine fibre-optics. Doppelgehirn, they called them. But I’m surprised, even so, to meet one. I thought they’d all died out long ago.

‘You look shocked,’ the Supervisor says, more amused than offended. And why not? He has probably seen this response a thousand times and more. His voice is soft, pleasant, like the voice of a homely uncle.

‘No, no I—’ And then I laugh. ‘Forgive me. I didn’t mean to be rude.’

He gives me his hand. ‘It’s understandable.’ Then, smiling, he turns, indicating the girl beside him. ‘Otto, Albrecht, this is my daughter, Gudrun. And I am Michael Reichenau. A Doppelgehirn, as you see, and Supervisor of Werkstätt 9. Heinrich you’ve met.’

‘Though not by name.’

Reichenau smiles, his mouth seeming exceedingly small in that huge face. ‘You blame him for his caution?’

‘Not at all.’

‘Then be seated. Gudrun, bring us drinks. Something a bit stronger than coffee, eh?’

Heinrich leaves, and as we take our seats, I find I can’t stop looking at Reichenau – or rather, at his head. Two brains, two distinct minds, sit in that skull. I’d read that many of them attained a kind of wisdom, what one might term a genuine supra-human enlightenment, but that was rare. Most simply went mad.

‘It must be difficult.’

‘Difficult? How do you mean?’

‘Living with yourself.’

Reichenau laughs at that. ‘No more than for any other man.

There’s always more than one voice in our heads, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Yes, but…’

He lifts a hand to interrupt me, and so I pause.

‘Even in our heads,’ he says, ‘it’s argued that there must be a master and a servant. But why should it be so? Let me assure you, Otto, we who live closer to the matter know better. One can live in harmony, two minds conjoined and in agreement.’

I smile. It’s a pleasant theory, but it’s also a lie, because very early on in the process one of the brains always took control – the one with the strongest will. Yet Reichenau denies it.

Why? For some political reason? Or does he really believe it? Has he fooled himself into believing it?

Gudrun brings drinks in frosted tumblers. There’s the sharp taste of aniseed from the clear liquid, but it’s like drinking molten fire. I cough and put my glass down, noting Reichenau’s amusement.

‘Heinrich was telling me you were looking for a power source. Well, there you are!’

And he laughs again, not bothering to explain the joke. But I guess it probably has to do with the name of the drink. My throat is burning, like I’ve just swallowed pure alcohol. And maybe I have. All I know is that if we keep drinking this stuff I will get drunk. As drunk as a Russian.

‘Seriously though,’ Reichenau says, his tiny eyes narrowing. ‘Why do you want to know where the source is located? You couldn’t get to it, you know. Couldn’t harm it.’

‘It must be heavily guarded.’

His laughter this time surprises me, because I don’t think I’ve said anything funny. Yet he seems to think so, and I begin to wonder if I’m wasting my time here, if Burckel has made another of his mistakes.

He smooths his left hand over the huge dome of his head, then shrugs. ‘The Guild take good care of their captive star. It would be easier for you or I to kill the King, yes and to fuck his daughter too, than to even get close to the power source.’

Gudrun didn’t even blink at the notion of fucking the King’s daughter, yet anyone else in this society might have been shocked by the words. But then, these are Undrehungar, and I’ve no doubt Reichenau has raised his daughter to curse the King’s very name.

‘I’ll find a way.’

This time he doesn’t laugh, but simply stares at me curiously. ‘You’re an odd fish, Otto. Oh, you may look normal, but…’ He takes a sip of his drink, then, smiling, looks at me again. ‘You’re not from here, are you, Otto?’

‘No.’

‘Good. I’m glad to hear that you don’t deny it. Because I had you checked out. There are all kind of entries in the record for you. Enough to satisfy any official who might come looking for you. You have a Werknummer, for instance, tattooed on your right arm. And yet… well, according to our files, you don’t exist.’

I smile, prepared for this. ‘I’m American.’

‘Ah. I see. An American. And why should an American be meddling in the affairs of Greater Germany? Are you a spy, Otto?’

I could say yes, see how he reacts, then jump right out of there and go back, enter the timestream earlier and do this all again, taking more care, but things are delicate and I’m not sure what I’d upset. My smile broadens.

‘No, just an envoy.’

‘An envoy?’

He leaves it. But his eyes tell me that he doesn’t believe it for a moment. He thinks I’m a spy, and probably for the Russians. Yet here I am, speaking to him, so there’s almost certainly something he wants from me. Something he doesn’t think he can get by any other means.

Reichenau leans towards me, that huge head delicately balanced on those powerful muscles. Its closeness makes me feel uneasy. In a world of ‘evolved’ and variant humans, he is one degree too strange for my liking.

‘Your interest in the power source… why is that?’

‘My masters – my American masters – wish to enter into negotiations with the fortress. But before they do, they need to have a proper sense of, well, of just how powerful you Germans are.’

Reichenau seems surprised. ‘They do not know?’

‘They know how it looks. You have limitless energy – energy provided by the black hole your scientists have tapped. And yet…’

‘And yet?’

Reichenau seems almost affronted. It seems he is perversely proud of the regime he wishes to bring to its knees. A revolutionary he may be, yet he is also, curiously, a patriot.

‘And yet the Russians, who have no similar power source, appear your equals.’

‘Our equals?’ He roars with laughter. Beside him, his daughter is strangely silent, her face never changing from its sombre expression.

‘But of course,’ I say, sensing how restless Burckel is becoming beside me. ‘Why else would the war have continued so long? If Germany is so much more powerful…’

‘Oh, my friend, do you understand nothing? The war is not prolonged because we are incapable of winning it, it is prolonged because it is necessary. If we wished, we could crush those vodka-swilling peasants in a single day, a single hour. Eradicate them. But that would not suit our masters’ purposes. Oh no. For them the war is a means of control – each German who dies on the front, dies to keep that scum in power. So long as the war continues, then their rule is safe, the status quo maintained. But as for equality…’

I am silent a moment, as if considering his words.

‘It may be so. And yet…’

‘Oh damn your “And yets”! It is so. But things are changing. Even now…’ He hesitates, as if he’s said too much, then sits back, glaring at me.

‘What is it?’ I ask, confused by his sudden change of mood. It feels almost like I’m facing a different person.

‘Your interest in the source,’ he says quietly. ‘It proves… convenient.’

‘Convenient?’

He nods his huge head. ‘We need to know.’

‘Know?’

‘Why the power is fading.’

It’s the first thing he’s said that genuinely surprises me. Burckel, beside me, tenses. The atmosphere in the room has changed. It has a sudden, dangerous edge.

‘I don’t understand,’ I say. ‘How can it be fading? The black hole… the power from that won’t run out for half a billion years.’

His eyes search mine. ‘And yet it is,’ he says, as quietly as before. ‘Oh, they don’t know it out there – the feed to the city is but the smallest fraction of its total power – but the Guild is worried. Very worried. These last three days…’

Ernst, I think. The power-anchor to Ernst is draining the black hole’s energy. Yet how could that be? The total energy to be tapped from a neutron star was phenomenal. Almost incalculable. To drain it in the fashion they were talking of was impossible, surely? Or was I missing something? Some crucial piece of information? Maybe they could only channel so much. Maybe…

But Reichenau is talking again, and I jerk my attention back to him.

‘…was the only reason I agreed to see you. Your interest seemed, how shall we put it, much more than coincidental.’ He pauses, then. ‘It would suit the Russians perfectly, after all.’

I smile coldly. ‘We are not Russians. Nevertheless, what you say is true. Were the power to be… diminishing…’

The thought astonishes me. This has never happened before. Not, at least, in any of the time-lines we have explored. Yet if the time-anchor is new and untested…

It makes me wonder if the Russians actually know just how dangerous this is. If so, maybe the effects of their tampering is accidental, and not some deliberate plan to undermine the structure of what follows.

For this is where it all starts – where the loop begins and ends.

You see, certain things must happen here. If they don’t then time travel will never come about, and without that…

My head spins. It has to happen. Has to.

Unless the whole damn thing gets blown to hell and back.

Reichenau has been silent, staring at me as if trying to make up his mind. Then, abruptly, he puts his hand out and snaps his fingers. At once the girl stands and, going over to one of the nearby shelves, takes something down and hands it to him. He stares at it a moment, then hands it across to me.

It’s a map, a simple, hand-drawn map like something a child might have sketched. I take it in, memorising all of its aspects, then hand it back to him.

He’s surprised, maybe even impressed. ‘You don’t want this?’

‘I have it.’ And I touch my forehead.

He smiles, then screws the piece of paper up and throws it away.

‘How do I get in there?’ I ask.

‘You don’t. No one does. Unless they’re authorised.’

‘So I get authorised.’

He laughs, a laughter that rolls on and on and on. ‘You are so funny, Otto. So very, very amusing.’

102

Heinrich sees us home. I can sense he’s not happy. He’s still polite, but now he’s monosyllabic in his responses to my questions, and when I ask when we’ll see him again, he simply shrugs. I don’t understand his sudden change of mood, but it doesn’t matter. I have what I need. All I have to do now is find a way in.

Burckel wants to talk; wants to chew it all over and make plans. But I’ve already made my own plans, and I tell him so.

‘But Otto…’

‘No. You stay here. Until I get back. If I get in trouble I’ll jump.’

He’s unhappy, but he does as I say. Leaving him there, I return to the gaming club. It’s mid-morning now, and most of the population are at work, but there are a scattering of people in Van Richtofen Strasse. All seems normal, until I step into the side alley and see, where the Club Rothaarige should be, a smouldering ruin. The place is cordoned off, visored SS officers – State Security – standing in the alley talking.

I stare for a time, pretending to be a curious bystander, and in a moment am moved on, but my heart is hammering in my chest.

What happened here? Was it gang related? Or was it an attempt on the Guildsman’s life? If so, was it successful? And what about Dankevich?

I decide to jump back. To find out just what went on after I’d left the club. But first I decide to go back and tell Burckel what’s going on.

Only Burckel’s not there. He’s gone AWOL again. I curse him, then, because time is of the essence, I jump back.

Hecht is waiting there, like he’s expecting me. And maybe he is. We are time travellers, after all. Yet for once it seems strange.

‘Trouble, Otto?’

‘They burned down the club.’

‘I know.’

You know?’

‘It’s in the histories. Only a footnote, admittedly, but…’

‘Ah.’

This is the part I don’t like. The thought that Hecht knows more than I about the situation. It makes me feel exposed.

‘I was going to…’

He interrupts. ‘Otto. I want to show you something.’

And so we jump. Back to the clearing. Only the clearing is no longer clear. There are makeshift tents among the surrounding trees – crude bivouacs – and there, about Ernst’s glowing form, a dozen or more pilgrims kneel, praying to him.

I shake my head, astonished, then look to Hecht, speaking quietly, so as not to disturb the pilgrims.

‘How much time has passed?’

‘A week subjective.’

‘Urd save him. And he’s conscious?’

‘We’re not sure. But if he is…’

It’s a dreadful thought. One of the kneeling party notices us and, with a bow to Ernst, breaks away from his prayers and comes across.

‘Sires,’ he says, in that ancient, heavily slurred Russian that they speak in these parts. ‘Have you come to make offerings to the angel?’

He’s relatively young, but his hair is long and his beard thick, and he gives off the air of a priest. His clothes however are rough, undyed, and he smells like an unwashed peasant.

Hecht stares at the young man a moment, then brushes him aside with the disdain of an aristocrat. What’s more, it works. The young man, noting our manner, backs off, bowed low, like he’s in the presence of a great lord.

I turn, looking across at our trapped ‘angel’.

Seen close, I note how much clearer Ernst now is. One cannot touch him, however. The air surrounding him crackles with static and I can see from the dark, burned patches on the ground nearby that those that have tried have been badly shocked for their pains.

‘There,’ Hecht says, indicating what appears to be a lump on Ernst’s left hip.

I look closer, feeling the hair bristle on my head as it’s drawn towards the field.

‘What is it?’

‘We think it’s what’s generating the field. We scanned him, a few days back, and that seems to be one end of the anchor.’

The lump is small and fleshy – no bigger than a largish coin – yet it seems to sit beneath the surface of his skin.

‘It’s made of his own DNA, of course. That’s why it’s taken hold so firmly. We can’t cut it out. We tried and almost lost a man doing so. But if we could switch off the power…’

‘I have a map,’ I say. ‘I know where it is.’

‘Good.’ And Hecht looks to me and smiles. But it’s quickly gone, even as he turns back and looks at Ernst. In its place I see a great compassion fill Hecht’s eyes.

‘You mustn’t fail, Otto,’ he says. ‘This time you must succeed.’

103

I shower and change, then return to the platform, wondering all the while what Hecht meant by this time. Have I been before? Are we trying again and again until we somehow get it right? Or have I already failed? Am I stuck in a loop, forever repeating this futile succession of actions, forgetting what I’ve done each time, as the field about Ernst grows stronger and stronger?

Only I don’t ask, and Hecht doesn’t offer. He isn’t even there to see me off.

And so I go back again. Back to Burckel’s room. Back to Neu Berlin, my head full of Ernst and the burned-down club – and Katerina.

Standing there, just before I make the jump, I wonder how I might persuade Zarah to send me there, to see Katerina briefly, to hold her and kiss her and tell her that I love her, only… how to ask? How to explain that, for me, seeing her is almost as urgent a need as freeing Ernst? As urgent as saving every last one of us, here at Four-Oh?

How to ask, indeed. And so I find myself back in Burckel’s room, waiting on the man; wondering where he’s gone this time, and who he’s talking to. And while I sit there on the edge of his bed, I take a piece of paper and, from memory, begin to sketch her face, looking upward and to the right, her bright eyes shining with the morning light.

Katerina.

Finished, I fold the paper and place it in my inside tunic pocket, feeling now that I have at least some small part of her with me.

Two hours pass, and I’m about to go out and start looking for him, when Burckel reappears.

‘Well?’ I ask, keeping my temper.

‘I had to deliver something. For Hecht…That package you brought with you.’

I narrow my eyes. It seems he’s telling the truth. Only now he’s got me wondering why Hecht didn’t ask me to deliver it.

‘So where did you go?’

He turns away, as if he’s looking about for something. ‘Oh, in the north city. I found the man…’

I’m tense now. Strangely angry. ‘Man? What man?’

He glances at me, almost unable to meet my eyes. ‘Otto, please. I can’t tell you. Hecht was very insistent. So don’t ask. You mustn’t ask.’

It all seems very stupid, but I acquiesce. After all, Hecht must know what he’s doing. Mustn’t he?

I squash the doubt even as it rises in my mind. The only thing I’ve got to worry about is getting to the power source and turning it off somehow. Nothing else matters. If Hecht is playing other games, then that’s not my concern, even if – this once – he chooses to exclude me from them.

‘Have you heard about the club?’ I ask, wondering if he, like Hecht, already knows.

‘No… what’s happened?’

So I tell him, and see the genuine surprise in his eyes. ‘Do you know why?’

‘No. But I’d guess it has something to do with Dankevich and that Guildsman we saw. In fact, I’d bet a small fortune on it.’

Burckel nods then turns away, once again seeming to be looking for something.

‘Have you mislaid something, Albrecht?’

‘No, I… Ah, here it is.’

I frown. ‘What is that?’

He holds it up, the chain winking silver in the light, then slips it over his head.

‘It’s a charm,’ he says. ‘A lucky charm.’

104

We return to Van Richtofen Strasse. It’s mid-morning now, and the sky threatens rain. Burckel and I tour the bars nearest the club Das Rothaarige, asking questions of waitresses and barmen, trying to piece together what’s known. It’s not much but we get a clearer picture. Rumour is that the first alarm was sounded just after four. And then – and this everyone agrees on – there was an explosion.

A bomb. It had to be a bomb.

No one seems to know anything about casualties, however, and so we keep going, hoping to find someone who knows something a bit more specific. Here Burckel’s a help for once, for he seems to know most of the owners, and at a club some hundred metres or so from the ruins, we are brought drinks by a man named Meissner, whom Burckel seems to have known some years. With an air of secrecy, he tells us that he has a friend who’s got the inside track on what happened, and would we like to meet him?

I hesitate, then nod, and, taking our drinks, we go through, into a back room. And there, sitting in a chair behind a desk, gun in hand, is our old friend Dankevich.

As the door closes behind us, I see the anger burning in his eyes and realise we’ve made yet another mistake.

‘Sit down!’

His voice is cold, no-nonsense. The gun is aimed at me, as if Burckel is of no consequence.

‘Andreas—’ Burckel begins, but Dankevich barks at him.

‘Shut up and sit!’

There are two chairs, like we’ve both been expected. We sit.

‘Well?’ I ask. ‘Do you know what happened?’

‘You were there,’ he says coldly. ‘You saw him. You knew he was there.’

‘Who?’ I say. But I know who he means. The Guildsman. And I know now that Dankevich was in the club when Burckel and I paid our visit, probably watching us on one of the club’s security cameras.

‘Don’t fuck with me,’ he says, and the gun in his hand trembles, like his anger’s genuine. And maybe it is. Maybe he really doesn’t know who Burckel and I are. But that’s unlikely.

‘So what’s your angle?’ I ask. ‘Why are you so concerned?’

‘It was my club, that’s fucking why! My money. And now my fucking loss!’

It’s a good act, only I know he’s a Russian agent, and any money he may or may not have put into the club was Russian money, not his.

‘How did you get out?’

‘Me?’ He looks puzzled. ‘I wasn’t there.’

‘And the Guildsman?’

‘Dead. And eighteen others with him. The fucker used a sticky bomb. Placed it right dead centre on the Guildsman’s chest.’

I narrow my eyes. ‘How do you know all this? I thought the cameras were destroyed.’

‘They were. But there’s an external feed. We saw it all.’ He’s staring at me still, but there’s a slight question in his eyes now, as if he’s not quite as sure of me as he first thought.

‘And the assassin?’

‘Dead. When the bomb went off he was only a metre or so away.’

‘But you got a good look at him?’

‘No. The fucker was masked.’

‘Ah…’ And I wonder if our friend Reichenau was involved. One of his men, maybe. ‘All right…but why are you so pissed off with me?’

‘Because you were there earlier. Your first visit. A bit of a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?’

‘That’s because it was.’

‘So you say. But I’m afraid you’re under suspicion. The Guild are furious. They want answers, and fast. If you hadn’t come here…’

Too late, I realise what he’s done. Nor can I jump, because then Burckel will have to jump, too, and our operation here will be completely blown. That is, if it isn’t already. But Dankevich is acting as if he really doesn’t know who we are. As I stand and turn to the door, so it flies open and two SS men, heavy snub-nosed automatics in their hands, block the way.

‘I’m sorry, Albrecht,’ Dankevich says. ‘But if I hadn’t handed you in, they would have come for you anyway.’

The apology is unexpected – and it makes me glance back at him. But then we’re grabbed and cuffed and half pushed, half carried out to the cruiser which is waiting in the broad avenue outside, hovering a foot above the ground, all black metal plate and bristling guns.

Burckel looks sick, but I’m not about to let these bastards take us in and torture us, and as the cruiser lifts and banks, so I jump and jump back almost instantly, artillery in hand, and open fire, taking out both the guards and another four of their companions, including the pilot. One of them manages to fire a shot off, however, and suddenly Burckel’s squealing like a stuck pig. As the cruiser dips towards the ground, Freisler appears from nowhere in the co-pilot’s seat and, taking the controls, keeps the flyer steady until I can see to Burckel. It takes a moment to stop the bleeding; then I go forward to join Freisler in the cockpit.

‘Thanks,’ I say, hauling the dead pilot out of his seat and clambering in, getting the feel of the joystick.

Freisler nods… then vanishes.

105

We dump the cruiser in wasteland to the south of the city. There I jump back to Four-Oh and return an instant later with a proper medical kit to patch Burckel up. It’s his leg. The bone is smashed, but I can deal with that. I dose him up and put the limb in a walking cast, its neuro-transmitters by-passing the nerve-ends in the shattered leg, its artificial muscles allowing Burckel to walk while the bone heals.

We make our way by foot to the nearest terminus. Burckel’s convinced there’ll be a full-scale alert out for us, so we try to avoid all checkpoints and security cameras, only in this world you can’t scratch your arse without a camera looking on.

I’m tempted to go back and change things, to jump in down the line and sort this mess out at the source, only Hecht was keen that I didn’t meddle, and what Hecht says goes.

The priority now is to find a hidey-hole. Somewhere to stay for the next day or two. I suggest contacting Reichenau’s man Heinrich, and Burckel makes the call, only our friendly terrorists don’t want to know. They cut us dead, like they’re afraid to know us.

I’m at a loss, but Burckel has the answer.

‘Werner. We can stay with Werner. He’ll look after us.’

I’m not so sure, but as I know no one else in this world, I go along with him. Burckel makes another call and, half an hour later, a bright red flyer descends nearby and Werner leans out, beckoning us across. It’s not as plush, nor as powerful as the Steuermann-L8, but I’m surprised that Werner owns one at all. He’s alone in the flyer, no sign of his two goons. Once we’re strapped in the back he asks us what happened, and for once I let Burckel do the talking.

‘You shot them?’ he asks me, amazed. ‘How the fuck did you manage that? I thought you were cuffed?’

‘A trick I learned,’ I say. ‘But thanks. For this…’

‘Shit. Don’t thank me. Anyone who whacks one of those bastards…’

I’m about to say that I didn’t, only Burckel lays his hand on my arm and I keep quiet.

Werner’s ‘place’ is a big penthouse studio on the eastern side of the city. He sets the flyer down on a pad, then hurries us inside.

The apartment is the very height of luxury. I look about me, impressed. Werner is a far bigger man than I thought. ‘Where are your friends?’

‘I sent them away for a couple of days,’ he answers, pouring us drinks. ‘I thought it best.’

His smile is kindly, unthreatening, and I begin to wonder whether my earlier judgement of him was too hasty.

‘I’ve some business to do,’ he says, ‘so I’ll be gone for three or four hours, but you’ll be safe here.’

I look up and find he’s holding something out for me to take. It’s a gun. A large calibre automatic, with laser sights.

‘Just in case,’ he says and smiles. ‘I don’t think anyone followed me, but you never know.’

I nod, and smile back at him gratefully. ‘Thanks. You don’t know how much this means.’

And that’s true. Germany owes a debt to ‘Werner’. That is, if we survive the next two nights.

When Werner’s gone, I see to Burckel, checking his wound, then dose him up again. I want to give him something stronger – something to put him out, to let him rest so that his body will heal faster – but he won’t let me. He wants to keep awake. He wants to talk. And so, finally, I let him, taking a seat by the window, looking out across the city, the gun across my lap, as, sprawled out on the couch nearby, Burckel tells me how it’s been, here in 2747.

‘This is a cold place, Otto. A frightening place, at times. No place to raise a family, if you know what I mean. Not that we two have much sense of family, eh? Not in the traditional sense.’

‘We are a people…’

‘I know, but sometimes, well, I miss the more intimate stuff… you know, being a father, having children… that kind of thing.’

‘Not the sex, then?’

‘No. Strangely enough I don’t miss the sex. I never liked being part of the programme. You know, servicing the Frau…’

I look away, before he sees the agreement in my eyes.

‘Anyway,’ he goes on, ‘even if I could, there’d be no point in this world. These people live in constant fear.’

I look to him, querying that.

‘The fortress has the power of life or death over all,’ he says, ‘and it chooses its servants, well, let us say arbitrarily. Who knows on what criteria the choice is made. All that anyone knows is that at any time – day or night – the King’s men might call and take a child, any child they wish, and take it back to the fortress to be changed, turned into one of the do-hu, the domesticated humans that serve the Masters. Nor is there any right of appeal. All here are the property of the fortress.’

I know, yet to hear Burckel say it so clearly – and with such bitterness – makes me see it anew.

‘There are things we cannot change, Albrecht. How people live…’

‘You believe that bollocks?’

I stare at him, surprised.

‘No, Otto. Think. We can change Time itself. Recast events and make things happen. So why not this? Why not make changes that affect the common people’s lives? Why always the grand historical gesture?’

I could answer, and at another time I might, only I want to hear what he has to say. Want to learn just how deeply this madness has taken hold of him.

‘We act like policemen, Otto. Time cops, when we really ought to be acting like revolutionaries. Undrehungar. We could change things. Really change things. Not piss about meddling in historical events – what good does that do ultimately? The Russians only change it back! No. We need to get to grips with the underlying phenomena, with the infrastructure of history, not the surface froth.’

I have heard this argument before, but only from my younger students. To find it in an agent of Burckel’s maturity stuns me, for he really ought to know what he’s talking about.

‘Have you been lonely here?’

He blinks, surprised by the question, then looks down and, after a moment, nods.

‘You know,’ he says. ‘Some days I’ve been so lonely that I’ve thought I was going mad. I’ve thought…’

He hesitates, and when he doesn’t continue I prompt him. ‘Thought what?’

He takes a long, shuddering breath, then nods to himself.

‘Go on,’ I say. ‘I’m listening.’

‘It’s just… sometimes it feels as if I’ve reached the edge.’

‘The edge?’

‘Of what’s in my head. It’s like… you know how the ancients used to view the world as a great flattened circle, surrounded by a void, and that if you came to the edge you would fall off? Well, that’s how I feel. That’s what my memory seems like sometimes. There are limits to it. Like, well, like something has been taken from me.’

My mouth is dry now. This is what I saw, what I read, in Burckel’s journals – the very thing that set alarm bells ringing, both for me and for Hecht.

‘And to what do you attribute this… feeling?’

There’s the slightest frown now. ‘I don’t attribute it to anything, Otto. It’s how we are. How human beings are made. Only…’

Only I don’t have that feeling. And as far as I know, no one normal has it either. Yet Burckel does. Why? Was he captured by the Russians and re-conditioned? Or is it something simpler – something physiological, brought on by a blow to the head or perhaps a mild stroke?

‘Albrecht… I have a confession to make.’

‘A confession?’

‘I read your journal.’

He laughs. ‘Read it? But…’ And then he sees what I have done and his face changes, and he nods, as if it all now fits into place.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘But we had to know. Hecht had to know.’

‘Yeah…’ But he doesn’t sound happy. He sighs and lets his head fall back, closing his eyes. ‘So what did Hecht say?’

‘He told me to watch you.’

‘Ah…’ He’s silent for a moment, then he smiles. ‘At least you’re honest, Otto. Some other bastard…’

He doesn’t finish the sentence, but I know what he means. Some other bastard would have kept quiet about it; pretended to be his best friend.

‘Albrecht?’

‘Yes, Otto?’

‘Where did you meet Werner? In that bar we went to?’

‘Urd no!’ He laughs. ‘It was at a party. I had these two friends – they’re dead now, but – well, I went to this party with them, in the east lowers. In Friedrichshain, I think it was.’

‘When was this?’

‘Three, maybe four years ago.’

‘And he’s been a friend ever since?’

‘No. At first I found him quite hostile. I remember we argued that first time. I found him… arrogant, I guess. Self-opinionated. But then I met him again a couple of times and things improved. First impressions… they’re not always right, are they?’

I think of Kravchuk and I’m not so sure. But I don’t argue. I want Burckel to talk. I want to find out where the edges of his memory lie.

‘You’ve been here before, then?’

‘Once or twice. Not often. He had a gathering here once, a year or so back. It wasn’t so much a party as… well, Dankevich was a guest.’

‘Go on…’

‘Oh, I know what you’re thinking, but there’s no connection. Werner is as German as they come. He’s like Reichenau in that, fiercely proud of his nationality. He’d never dream of getting involved with the Russians.’

‘Okay… but how does he know Dankevich?’

Burckel shrugs. ‘I don’t know, but that’s how I came to meet Dankevich – or Schmidt, as I knew him. That’s how I got to hear about the club.’

‘Das Rothaarige?’

‘Yes. Mind, I didn’t know that he owned it. If I had—’

He yawns deeply. The shots are clearly having an effect, but there’s also a degree of shock setting in.

I look out across the rooftops. The city looks abandoned almost, dead, the only movement the dark shape of a flyer, two, three miles distant

‘You say you had Werner checked out. What did you do?’

‘There are ways,’ he says. But he doesn’t elaborate, and it gives me a moment’s unease. Then I think about what Werner’s done and I relax. If he’d wanted to, he could have handed us over straight away – led the authorities directly to where we were. No. Werner’s all right.

‘Do you ever have doubts, Otto?’

I look across. Burckel is watching me now. ‘Doubts?’

‘About what we do? About why we do it?’

‘No.’

And it’s true. If we didn’t do this, the Russians would eliminate us, down to the last man, woman and child.

‘Really?’

I nod.

‘Only, what if we do win, Otto? What if we finally destroy the Russians? What then? What kind of world would it be that our children inherited?’

I smile. ‘A German world.’

There’s the flicker of a smile, but he’s in deadly earnest now. ‘A German world, certainly. Not a better world. Not a more humane world.’

I look away. ‘You’ve been here too long, Albrecht. All German societies are not like this.’

‘No?’ He laughs sourly. ‘Only this is it. The world. Asgard. This is what was foreseen in the Myth, Otto. It’s the singular pattern that underlies it all. We derive from this.’

‘Maybe…’ I change the subject, steer away from the rocks. ‘How’s the leg now?’

‘Comfortable.’ And then he laughs. ‘You don’t want to, do you, Otto?’

‘Don’t want to what?’

‘Question it.’

‘What is there to question? The war is real, Albrecht. If it wasn’t, you wouldn’t be here.’

‘No. Yet sometimes I wonder just what purpose I serve. I mean, all of this energy we’ve put into waging this war – three generations now – and what have we achieved? What have we really changed?’

That isn’t quite the point, but again I don’t want to go down that path. I know why I’m fighting this war – what I need to know is why Albrecht Burckel has given up on it. For he has, as sure as Dankevich is Dankevich and not Schmidt, a Russian, not a German.

‘Was there never anyone, Albrecht? Here, I mean, in Neu Berlin.’

He knows what I mean. A woman. But he doesn’t answer me. Instead he perseveres. ‘You can keep on avoiding it, Otto, but one of these days you’ll wake up and wonder what the fuck you’ve been doing all these years.’

I shrug. You see, I don’t believe him. I don’t believe it’s possible.

‘Oh, you’re very smug about it now, Otto, but one of these days something will happen to you and, well, your eyes will be opened. You’ll see…’

I stand, angry with him now. ‘Shut up, Albrecht! For fuck’s sake… can’t you see it? There’s nothing wrong with me. It’s you.’

‘Me?’ He laughs. ‘At least I have self-knowledge. At least I know who I am. You? Do you ever ask yourself anything, Otto? Or do you just accept it all blindly?’

I realise that I’m holding the gun much too tightly and relax my grip. Burckel is so wrong – so far gone down that road – that he can’t see it, but that’s no reason for me to lose it with him.

‘You ought to sleep,’ I say.

‘What, like you, you mean?’

‘I’m not sleeping, Albrecht. I’m wide awake.’

‘Are you?’

But he doesn’t pursue it. Sighing, he lays back and closes his eyes, and in an instant he appears to fall asleep, his mouth open, his breath sighing from him.

I wait a while until I’m sure he’s sleeping, then, putting the gun down on the chair, go for a little tour of the apartment, checking it out.

The kitchen’s luxurious, but not as luxurious as the bathroom, with its sunken golden bath – big enough to hold a small party. There’s a large study, and several bedrooms, again decorated in a manner that suggests great wealth, but what interests me most is a room at the far end of the main hallway – for the door to it is locked.

Another time I wouldn’t bother. Another time – with less at risk – I’d accept things at face value and leave it be. But this is no time to take chances, and so I jump to Four-Oh, then jump back again on the other side of the door.

Looking about me, I smile. Light glints from a hundred polished silvered surfaces. It’s a work-room, a laboratory of sorts, with part of it used as an operating room. It’s state-of-the-art, of course, which doesn’t surprise me. What does is the fact that Werner works from home. That feels wrong, somehow. I don’t know why, but it does. I was sure he’d work elsewhere.

I walk across. At the far end, beyond the work benches and the operating tables, is a whole wall of massive drawers. It has the look of a morgue, only when I pull open one of the cabinets it’s no corpse I glimpse inside.

‘Thor’s breath!’

I swallow, shocked by the sheer oddness of the creature laying there. It’s alive. Tubes snake from the cabinet into its brain, its mouth and chest – a chest which rises and falls with a calm yet, for me, disturbing regularity.

Werner’s a gene surgeon, sure. This is his job. But who the fuck is ordering these monstrosities?

I check other drawers. They’re not all as odd as the one I first saw, but they’re none of them human – at least, not in any normal sense.

Or so it seems at first. And then it clicks. I open up one of the cabinets again and look more closely – this time with an anatomist’s eye – and realise that they are human, all too human. Only I’ve been looking at them from the wrong viewpoint. The reason they don’t look normal is because they aren’t finished. They’re being grown, but not as babies are grown, from a foetus, but piecemeal – each individual organ changed for some purpose, just as the limbs and torsos and heads have been changed. Each individual part tailor-made by our friend, like custom-made flyers.

It makes me reassess things. Makes me ask just who Werner is working for.

I jump back and reappear an instant later back outside, in the hallway. Burckel is still sleeping, so out of it that, when I shake him, he gives a little grunt, then begins to snore loudly, like nothing is going to wake him ever again.

I walk across and stand there at the window. Cloud drifts across the deserted rooftops. More than ever, Neu Berlin looks like a dead city.

Or a city of the dead…

Maybe it’s what I know about the coming days that makes it seem so, yet I can’t shake the impression now that it’s taken hold, and when I see a cruiser approaching fast, I barely react until it’s almost too late.

‘Shit!’

I grab the gun then turn and try to shake Burckel awake. ‘Come on!’ I yell. ‘We’ve got to get out of here!’

I don’t know where or how, but it doesn’t seem to matter. I can’t wake him. And as the cruiser sets down on the roof just outside the window, I turn to find guards jumping down out of the craft, their guns trained on me through the glass. And then the room floods with light and a voice booms out.

‘Throw the gun down, Otto! Throw it down or you’re dead!’

106

‘I had to,’ Werner says, as if I shouldn’t take his betrayal too hard. ‘If I didn’t hand you in, someone else would. So why not make a profit on the transaction? I’m a businessman, after all, and—’

‘Shut up!’ Dankevich says irritably from across the room. But I understand it now. Werner auctioned us to the highest bidder. And the highest bidders were the Russians. Not that they can keep what they’ve bought.

That said, I can’t make Dankevich out. Surely he knows I’m a German agent. If not, then why buy us back? Yet he’s acting as if he doesn’t. In fact, he seems almost nervous. Edgy about something.

As I watch, he sits on the edge of the couch next to Burckel and feels his pulse, then turns and looks to me.

‘Is he okay?’

‘It’s the medication.’

‘Ah…’

But that too seems odd. Why is he so worried about Burckel? And there’s another thing – why did Dankevich hand me over to Security in the first place?

Werner leaves the room. He’s not gone a second or two when the air beside Dankevich shimmers and three of his fellow agents appear from nowhere. Dankevich stands, smiling a greeting at the newcomers.

I know two of them. They’re brothers, Ivan and Grigori Kalugin. The third is new to me, however, a small fellow with receding hair and pinched features, a real weasel of a man, not unlike our friend Dankevich.

Werner returns, holding two bulbs of drink. He’s smiling, but, seeing Dankevich’s friends, he starts and drops the bulbs, his eyes gone big and round.

‘What the…?’

‘It’s all right,’ Dankevich says. ‘They’re just friends.’

But Werner’s reaction, more than anything, convinces me that he doesn’t know what’s really going on. He looks about him, seeking some explanation for the sudden appearance of the men, but I can see he’s having trouble. More than that, he’s frightened.

‘Sit down, Werner, before you fall down.’

Werner swallows hard, then sits. ‘What’s going on, Andreas? Where did these three come from?’

‘They’re Russians,’

I say. ‘Russians?’ Werner stares at me as if I’ve gone mad.

‘That one, the one you call Schmidt. His real name’s Dankevich. Fedor Ivanovich Dankevich.’

‘You know each other?’

I smile and nod. ‘Know him? I’ve killed him.’

Dankevich’s eyes widen. I look at him and laugh. ‘Oh, you’re much younger than you were then.’

And as I say it, I realise what that means. Dankevich will survive this episode, whatever happens to the rest of us. He’ll go on to live another twenty years, skipping back and forth in Time. Which means…

But Werner cuts into my thoughts. Standing, he shakes his head and laughs with disbelief. ‘What the fuck are you two talking about?’

‘Time,’ Dankevich says, staring at me now as if he’s seeing me for the first time. ‘We’re talking about Time. About controlling Time.’ He pauses, then, threateningly, ‘You, Otto. Cause us any trouble and I’ll kill your friend here. Understand?’

‘What do you want?’

‘From you? Nothing.’ He turns and looks to his companions. ‘Grigori, wake him up.’

The elder Kalugin brother steps across and, taking a hypodermic from his pocket, gives Burckel a shot to jerk him awake.

Burckel sits up, like a dog on speed, twitching, looking about him anxiously. ‘Otto? What?’ Then he sees the Russians and goes quiet.

Dankevich crouches again, his face on a level with Burckel’s. ‘The package, Albrecht. What did you do with the package?’

‘I… delivered it.’

Dankevich looks round. ‘Grigori – jump back and find out where he went. And bring it back.’

The small man nods and vanishes, and as he does so, Werner groans. I glance at him and see how he’s rocking back and forth in his chair, as if he’s only hanging on to sanity by a thread. Then I look back.

I expect our friend Grigori back in an instant, and clearly, so does Dankevich. But a full minute passes and there’s no sign of him returning.

Dankevich straightens. ‘What’s keeping him?’

I look to Burckel; meet his eyes. ‘Jump,’ I say.

‘What?’

They’re all looking at me now. I look to Burckel again, willing him to obey me.

‘Jump, Albrecht! For fuck’s sake jump!’

But Burckel shakes his head. ‘I can’t. I’ve… tried. I… I just can’t.’

Dankevich is smirking.

‘What have you done?’

‘Done?’ But he’s distracted. He gestures towards the younger Kalugin brother. ‘Ivan… go and find out where the fuck Grigori has got to.’

Ivan vanishes, then reappears. He looks distraught, and before he can say a word, Dankevich takes him aside. They talk, quietly yet with real animation, in Russian. And while they do, I turn again to Burckel.

This is strange. So strange it almost makes no sense. Dankevich knows now who we are, but he’s not worried. We could jump out and come back armed, and he knows that. Only it feels completely wrong.

‘Albrecht,’ I say quietly. ‘We have to get out of here, and we have to do it now.’

Burckel turns away.

‘What is it? Why can’t you…?’

But my words only make him hunch into himself, like he’s ashamed.

And so, because there’s nothing else to do, I step across and, wrapping my arms about him, I jump…

107

And come to in agony. My ears are ringing and there are pains in my arms and legs and chest. I can’t see out of my right eye. I feel limp and damp, but also like someone has stuck a thousand tiny needles into me. My skin stings, like it’s been burned, and my whole body tingles with the pain, so much that I black out again, and when I come to a second time, it’s to find a small crowd gathered around me, someone fixing a drip into my arm even as Zarah strokes my forehead and tells me it’s going to be all right.

I blink my right eye, trying to clear it, but that’s a big mistake and the pain engulfs me, almost sending me back into the darkness for a third time. I groan aloud and clench my fists against the hurt, but the hurt is everywhere and it won’t go away. Then, slowly, so slowly that I think I’m dreaming, it begins to wash from me as the drugs take hold.

My head swims and, for the first time, I realise that it’s Hecht who’s crouched over me; Hecht who’s been talking to me this last minute or so without it registering.

I turn my head the slightest degree, trying to take in what’s happening. The platform is a mess of blood and guts and jagged bone, and there’s an overpowering stench in the air. Someone is sewing me up now, but I’m confused. What did they do? Bomb us?

And then I remember. We were in Neu Berlin. Burckel and I…

‘Albrecht…’ I croak, barely able to get the word out. ‘Where’s Albrecht?’

Hecht says something, but it gets carried away. I try to focus on him, but my left eye closes. It feels much lighter than the other, as if someone has replaced my right eye with a piece of lead. But the stabbing pain has gone now and I feel relaxed, like someone has doused me in a bath of cool, liquid silk.

Yet even as I slip back into unconsciousness, I see Dankevich’s face as we jump, see the shock there as he throws himself belatedly towards Burckel and I, his lips forming a single word;

‘No-ooooooooh!’

108

I don’t understand at first. Hecht hands me the ragged gobbet of flesh and I frown at him. It looks like a locator, and I tell him such, but Hecht shakes his head.

‘It’s what’s left.’

‘Left?’

‘Of Albrecht Burckel. Of the real Albrecht Burckel. That’s why the signal never stopped. The focus was still working. But the rest of him…’

I feel nauseous. So that’s where our friend Werner came in. The Russians must have paid him to make a ‘doppelganger’ – a ‘copy’ – of Burckel, then switched the live focus from the real Burckel to the copy, embedding this gobbet of flesh into the copy.

Only Werner didn’t use Burckel’s DNA to make his doppelganger, so that when Burckel jumped…

I get a flash of the platform – that awful bloody mess, that hideous, gut-turning stench – and close my eyes again.

And immediately blink awake, because the eye is healed up, and my body…

‘Two months,’ Hecht says, answering my unspoken question. ‘But don’t worry. I sent you back. Repaired you in the past.’

I nod, relieved. At least that means Ernst hasn’t suffered too much from my absence, though Urd knows how it feels inside that stasis field. Each second might seem an eternity.

‘You’re good as new,’ Hecht goes on, ‘only I want you to hang on a day or two before you go back in. There’s been a change of plan. You’re going back, but this time I want you on the inside.’

‘Inside?’

‘In the fortress. It’s all arranged. You have an audience with the King.’

But it doesn’t properly sink in. Not yet. Because I keep thinking about what happened. About Burckel and the ‘edges’ of his memory. No wonder the poor bastard felt like that. No bloody wonder…